Biggar’s the hero as Saints snare Tigers
THIS East Midlands derby rarely fails to deliver and regardless of an empty stadium this was the usual fiesty, high octane, occasionally bad tempered, often very skilful, but always watchable fare.
Saints, with Lions hopeful Dan Biggar refusing to come off despite taking a heavy knock to his leg late on when tackling Nadolo, dug in deep at the end to clinch a victory that maintains their push for the play-offs.
Biggar was having a stormer but Saints, who had to make three late changes before the kick off with Ollie Sleightholme, Tamana Harrison and Ehren Painter all dropping out, were down to 14 men with a man in the bin during the last five minutes when Biggar got injured.
The Wales fly-half was reduced to a walking wounded but still managed an important tap-tackle on Jasper Weise that possibly prevented a try.
Despite the pre-match disruption Saints made a fluent composed start, running and handling from deep and challenging the Tigers defence at every possible opportunity.
Their reward was a try for the industrious Dave Ribbans on ten minutes which Biggar failed to convert, hitting the upright.
Tigers responded with a midrange penalty from George Ford but in the passage of play leading to the penalty, centre Dan Kelly took a knock to the head when tackled by Lewis Ludlam.
Yes, the promising Leicester centre was falling but we have seen cards – some even red – for similar incidents in recent months and Saints might count themselves a little lucky to concede just a penalty. Evans, alas, had to depart and played no further part in the game.
Saints continued their promising start when Rory Hutchinson read a rather
telegraphed Ford pass in midfield and trotted home unopposed. The Scotland centre caught it nonchalantly one handed, as do most successful interceptors, although with a two man Tigers overlap had he dropped it he would probably have been binned.
The momentum shifted a little on the half hour with Saints scrum-half Alex Mitchell going off with an ankle injury, despite Tigers losing Matt Scott for ten minutes when he made contact to Shaun Adendorff ’s head with his shoulder.
By the letter of the law it was probably more red than yellow and certainly Scott didn’t hang around long enough for referee Karl Dickson to change his mind.
Tigers had their gander up, though, and as halftime approached laid siege to Saints line, a period of pressure which ended with man mountain Nadolo picking up from short range after a series of rucks and flopping over for the try.
Saints earned themselves a little breathing space either side of half time with a brace of Biggar penalties followed by a well-worked try from Sam Matavesi following a neat lineout ploy.
After that, though, Leicester started to find their power game up front and replacement scrumhalf Jack van Poortvliet added a deal of sharpness around the fringes at the breakdown. From the moment Ford slotted a penalty in the 58th minute it was backs to the wall stuff from Saints.
Their defence has been questioned recently but Northampton really rolled up their sleeves.
They couldn’t stop Nadolo scoring a second well-worked try but that was it. There were no other breaches of the defensive wall and a rare win at Welford Road was their reward.