The champions have been mugged at home by the team they deposed. Well, not quite the team. Northampton rung the changes for this match, but the understudies proved the stars of the show to terrorise their hosts. Six tries, a hat-trick for Tommy Freeman and the lead, no less, of the Prem for good measure.
The bookies gave Northampton a 20-point head start for this one. Bath were at full strength, the Saints some way short of it, but this will surely prove one of the performances of the season. And they were unlucky not to have won by more, after three tries were ruled out by the officials, a couple of them very harshly.
Both sides had changed 10 players from their comfortable wins last weekend, but Bath had strengthened their side, while Northampton left a host of first-teamers at home. The Saints are the sort of club whose backup players thrive in this environment. Hard, flexible and above all smart, Bath’s first-teamers would have had to have been absolutely on it if they wanted the comfortable home win expected by a sellout of festive revellers.
The Saints turned round level, but they were extremely unfortunate not to hold that comfortable lead themselves. Freeman, making his first start since October, was selected at outside centre and scored the first try in only the third minute, picking a superb line off an attacking lineout to stroll over in style.
But then the officials did the visitors no favours. From the restart, Joe Cokanasiga seemed to tap the ball back and Rory Hutchinson – the epitome of hard, flexible and smart – controlled it expertly to send Edoardo Todaro away. The touch judge, however, told the referee, Craig Maxwell-Keys, that Cokanasiga’s tap-back was actually a Northampton knock-on. Maxwell-Keys blew his whistle before the try was scored. A shame they did not wait and then check, because replays suggested the touch judge’s call was wrong.
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Gloucester 21-30 Saracens: Williams shines in defeat
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Mark McCall hailed Tomos Williams as a “great, great player” after the Wales international underlined the quality that Saracens can expect by shining for Gloucester in a 30-21 Prem defeat against McCall’s team at Kingsholm. The 30-year-old British and Irish Lion created two of Gloucester’s three tries and was a constant threat in a first appearance since Saracens announced their high-profile signing on Christmas Day.
“He is a great, great player,” the Saracens rugby director said of Williams (pictured laying the ball off for Arthur Clark’s try). “He didn’t really have the best platform today, but everyone can see his quality every time he attacks.”
Saracens ended a run of three-successive league defeats by seeing off Gloucester in bonus-point fashion. The flanker Theo McFarland inspired a first Prem win since mid-October by scoring two of his team’s four tries, while the hooker Theo Dan and the scrum-half Ivan van Zyl also crossed, with the fly-half Owen Farrell kicking two penalties and two conversions.
McCall said: “Overall, it was one of our better 80-minute performances. Today was good, but we have had inconsistent days. We could have beaten Bath and we could have beaten Exeter and been in a slightly different position to where we are. Today was important because have lost a few in a row and it was important to come down here and get a result.”
Gloucester had their moments – notably through first-half touchdowns for the locks Freddie Thomas and Clark, plus a late Will Knight try – with Ross Byrne converting all three scores, but they ultimately slipped to a seventh loss from eight Prem games this season. To compound Gloucester’s frustration, they lost wing Ben Loader – a pre-season signing from the South African side the Stormers – after 15 minutes of his comeback game following injury.
Gloucester’s rugby director, George Skivington, said: “We are creating some pressure and some good line-breaks and then just not finishing them off. That is a sign of not quite connecting – we have not quite got the experience at the moment to get across the line.
“On the flipside, the boys stayed in the fight the whole game. They were desperate to try and get a losing bonus-point at the end and never threw the towel in.” PA Media
Bath set up a sustained attack from the resultant scrum, and Thomas du Toit was cleverly worked over from a tapped penalty a few minutes later. A 14-0 lead to the visitors thus became 7-7. And then 14-7, when Tom Dunn went over from a second lineout to the corner, in the 15th minute.
But Bath were not quite convincing. Early in the second quarter, Northampton, down to 14 after a yellow card for Ed Prowse, struck again. Archie McParland found a gap round the fringes and ran to the posts. The excellent Anthony Belleau, in for Fin Smith, landed the conversion to equalise.
Northampton thought they had scored again before the break. Belleau turned the ball inside to George Hendy to launch Freeman at the posts. Callum Chick touched down on the follow-up, but the TMO drew attention to a marginal call at the previous ruck. Whether Beno Obano was impeded in defence of the ruck is a moot point. He certainly did not seem to think so.
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Bath 21-41 Northampton teams and scorers
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Bath De Glanville (Carreras 57); Cokanasiga, Lawrence, Ojomoh (Harris 31), Arundell; Russell, Spencer (capt; Carr-Smith 72); Obano (Van Wyk 57), Dunn (Frost 65), Du Toit (Griffin 65), Roux (Hill 57), Molony, Bayliss (Pepper 57), Underhill, Reid
Sin-bin Frost 66
Tries Du Toit 2, Dunn Cons Russell 3
Northampton Hendy; Todaro, Freeman, Hutchinson (Lumley 77), Ramm (Sleightholme 74); Belleau, McParland (James 77); Iyogun, Smith (Walker 67), Davison (Millar Mills 62), Prowse, Munga, Chick (capt), Graham, Pollock
Sin-bin Prowse 13
Tries Freeman 3, McParland, Pollock 2 Cons Belleau 4 Pen Belleau
Referee Craig Maxwell-Keys
The pattern continued into the second half. Bath scored a third try – Du Toit again, from a tapped penalty again – and Northampton had a third disallowed. Hutchinson’s try was awarded initially. This time the TMO rightly drew attention to the fact Hutchinson was inches short.
Thereafter, the Saints were anything but short. They were imperious. Bath twisted and turned in the storm of running rugby unleashed about them for the final half an hour. Freeman had his second after more sumptuous approach play, in the 53rd minute, then Henry Pollock scored the bonus-point try in spectacular style. Henry Arundell was somehow forced to spill the ball on the attack by Chick, the Saints’ understated captain, and Northampton were away on the counter.
Bath now fell away. Pollock was over again, from an attacking lineout with 15 minutes to play, before Freeman’s coup de grace. At the end of more free-flowing rugby, Freeman almost taunted Cokanasiga, standing up the former England wing and restating his own credentials as the current one. Imperious is the word.
