Northampton Saints v Saracens Match Report

It was an interesting game on Friday night. I confess I did not attend, the prospect of finding transportation to Northampton during rush hour (I don’t normally finish work until 5) was highly unappealing. Trains would’ve been jammed full and very slow potentially with delays (courtesy of West Mids trains) and driving on the M6 out is usually hell at the best of times. Consequently, some of the details may be slight variations of the truth. I did watch on TV but was multitasking and cooking my dinner. Once again forgive me if I get the odd thing wrong. Apologies that it's taken a while to publish this, a hectic weekend combined with having to move a friend out of their flat in one afternoon left me little time to write something up. We have struggled against Northampton at Franklins Gardens in recent years. Our last win there was in 2021 I believe where we won 6-30 courtesy of an Alex Lozowski masterclass. However in the last 5 attempts, we have come away the bettered of the two teams. Opinions on Franklins Gardens are mixed – I personally really enjoy the atmosphere and have had good experiences in both the Cinch and Carlsberg Stand with the home fans. We are meeting some Saints fans for the match at Tottenham Stadium next year in fact. I appreciate this is not the case for everyone and some of their fans can be rather unsavoury. There was plenty of negativity on social media on Friday night, so much so I turned my phone off and didn’t look at Facebook for the next 24 hrs or so. A wise decision, I think

Returning to the game, the flames were up, the crowd hyped up and Henry Pollock had clearly decided to ask his barber for the ‘Boris Johnson’ haircut. It looked like he had an enormous blonde toupee on. It was turning into one of those nights at the Gardens. Saints kicked off and we were away. It took them a mere 8 minutes to get on the scoresheet. Following from pressure around the Sarries 10m/22 line, a smartly placed grubber kick from Fin Smith freed space up for an onrushing George Hendy to gather and dot down in the corner. Fin Smith missed the conversion but it was 5-0 much to the delight of the home fans. Sarries were on the ropes. Saints only had to wait about 9 minutes for their next score. Max Malins failed to gather another Smith grubber kick with Eduaordo Todaro putting him under pressure, the ball bounced loose over the try line and since Malins hadn’t grounded the ball with his hand, arm or torso, Tom Pearson pounced and grounded it. Smith dissected the uprights, 12-0 with just 18 minutes gone. Following a flowing backs move from Smith, George Hendy and Tommy Freeman, the latter was able to power through Max Malins to dot down in the corner on 25 minutes. 17-0 and things were going from bad to worse for Sarries. We needed a response and we needed it sharpish. We got one. On the 29 minute mark, following a lineout maul, Nick Tompkins broke through the Saints midfield with one his trademark explosive runs, drawed in the last Saints defender in the backfield and managed to pass to Fergus Burke who raced clear of Alex Mitchell and went under the posts. 17-7. Saracens continued pressing and we started to win multiple phases and brake the gainline. Our backs targeted Saints’ wide channels; Saints’ defence became stretched. Sarries then scored again on 36 minutes when a clever switch play from Bracken/Burke allowed our fly half to place a beautifully weighted kick into the backfield where Jack Bracken could regather and dot down in the corner. Farrell missed what was a tricky conversion so it stayed 17-12 to Northampton. Tom Pearson got shown a yellow card after multiple Saints infringements in and around their try line - it didn’t take long for the Wolfpack to capitalise. After Danilo Fischetti gave away a free kick on a 5m scrum, Tom Willis made one of his barnstorming runs, being stopped a mere couple of metres from the Saints try line. The ball found its way to Juan Martin-Gonzalez who powered through the tackle of Rory Hutchinson and JJ Van-der Mescht and dotted down. Suddenly , Sarries had the lead! 17-19 at half time with Saints still down a man.

Sarries began the second half thoroughly on-top, with sustained pressure right from the off really. Tom Willis (once again) made a thunderous run, swatting aside Alex Coles and Fraser Dingwall and got just short of the line. Hugh Tizard smartly used the posts as a dummy runner and was able to power over the line just to the left of the left post. 17-26 and the game was in danger of slipping away from Northampton if they didn’t act fast. However, to their credit Saints did regroup after getting back to 15 men on the field; they started to win set-pieces, change the tempo, shift to wider play. Saracens conceded more penalties. And then came the real momentum swing. Following a Sarries lineout move, Henry Pollock intercepted Fergus Burke’s pass to Nick Tompkins. A desperate Owen Farrell made a superb tap tackle (if he hadn’t, I reckon Pollock would’ve outpaced any of the chasing defenders to score) but the ball found its way to Tom Pearson who powered through the tackle of Nick Tompkins and was brought down 5m from the line. Marco Riccioni then got caught in an offside position aroind the ruck (I think Mitchell passed the ball into him? Typical scrum half shenanigans) and he got rightly yellow-carded. It took Saints a couple of minutes to score. Who else would it be but aforementioned Tom Pearson, redeeming himself by going straight through the rather feeble tackle attempt from Ben Earl and scoring. Fin Smith duly converted. 24-26 and game on. Saracens were now a man down and on the ropes again and Saints only had to wait a few minutes for the next score, Tommy Freeman walking in untouched. 31-26. Saints were well and truly dominant now and on 67 minutes, Freeman had his hattrick Saints forwards drew in our defenders around the ruck. Smith found Hutchinson who found Freeman who dotted down in the other corner from their last 2 scores. 38-26 and the game really was starting to fall apart from our perspective. On 70 minutes, a moment of magic from a Charlie Bracken quick tap-and-go allowed him to free up space. He passed to Max Malins who did the rest. Farrell couldn’t convert but we were within range of a LBP and it was 38-31. Regrettably we couldn’t keep Saints within 7 points of us, and following a perfectly placed Fin Smith crossfield kick, Theo McFarland was wrong-footed (perhaps if the ball moved in the wind? I’m not sure…) and Tommy Freeman could gather and run in the corner. 43-31 and Saints with the deserving win. Sarries pushed for the try to get back within the LBP but we turned the ball over and the game ended. Disappointing for the good number of fans who made the journey on the Friday night to cheer the team on. Well done to all those who went and braved Friday night traffic/public transport.

In terms of our performance, I’m not sure we can read too much into it. Our fitness needs to improve, as does our game management in the last 15-20 minutes. We also started shockingly badly, so that’s going to need to be a key point of focus in the next training sessions this week and over the Autumn Internationals break.