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Northampton Saints vs Saracens match report: Owen Farrell shines in grim clash dominated by defence

Northampton Saints 6 Saracens 12

Hugh Godwin
Franklin’s Gardens
Sunday 08 November 2015 00:04 GMT
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Owen Farrell lands one of four penalties to keep Saracens top of the league
Owen Farrell lands one of four penalties to keep Saracens top of the league

Full marks to Mark McCall for honesty. “Probably not the best advert for the Premiership,” was how Saracens’ director of rugby described a grim meeting dominated by his team’s suffocating defence between two teams accustomed to scrapping out at the top of the league, but which left Northampton bottom-feeding, temporarily at least, with just one win from the opening block of four matches.

Saracens by contrast have won four out of four, and so head into European competition, hosting Toulouse on Saturday, in good heart. “I thought it was a brilliant away performance by us,” said McCall. “Sometimes you get games where the ball is incredibly slow and you have to grind it out.”

The grinding extended to the teeth of Northampton’s supporters, hacked off by a pivotal exchange in the 34th minute.

Almost exactly six months since the Premiership semi-final won by Saracens here featured the mild head-butt by Dylan Hartley that cost the Saints hooker his place in the World Cup, this was a tête-à-tête between two men who did team up for England. The Northampton flanker Tom Wood – captain after Hartley relinquished the role in the summer and Lee Dickson started on the bench – caught Owen Farrell a little late with a tackle that buckled the Saracens fly-half’s left knee. Farrell reacted by grabbing Wood’s shirt and shoving him twice around the neck and side of the head. After a TV review, the penalty stayed with Saracens despite the retaliation and Farrell converted it from 40 metres to tie the scores at 3-3 after Steve Myler’s penalty in the second minute. “You can’t go pushing people in the face,” said McCall’s Northampton counterpart, Jim Mallinder. “That should have been reversed.”

Saracens’ flanker Jacques Burger had started the weekend by diving into the Sam Burgess debate with a tweet: “Sam didn’t like the Union setup so let the man do what he loves”. Ben Kay, a member of the RFU’s five-man World Cup review panel, had his say on BT Sport pre-match: “Maybe with the back-rowers who are around – guys like Harlequins’ Jack Clifford – he [Burgess] doesn’t think there’s a place for him in [England] rugby union.”

Once the action started the effervescent Burger was maybe only third best in Saracens’ physical exertion, behind the remarkably athletic George Kruis and Maro Itoje, while Farrell, who had kicked 19 points in that May semi-final, contributed four penalties and no misses.

But as a health check of English rugby – Saracens, the champions, and Northampton have won the past two Premiership titles, and both clubs have qualified for the semi-final play-offs in each of the last six seasons – it left you feeling off-colour.

Hartley was fortunate not to connect when he flung an arm at Alex Goode after a first-half ruck while Farrell’s sangfroid was crucial as he kicked a second penalty from close to halfway, following two further hits, legitimately, from Wood and George Pisi.

The delivery from rucks was too slow, players were lobbed passes when they were standing still, and in some messy scrums Saracens played for time and penalties. Hard though George North for Saints and Chris Wyles of Saracens attempted snazzier touches, it was stodgy stuff. “If you want 15-man rugby on a beach, you need Mediterranean sun,” said Mallinder. “It absolutely threw it down [with rain] before the game and that affects how you play rugby.”

Kruis’s stamina was such that he was charging Saints down in the last 10 minutes and it was a rare dip when Itoje was pinged for a no-arms tackle on Kahn Fotuali’i in the 57th minute that gave Saints a great line-out position thanks to Myler’s deep kick. Typically, it was well defended by Saracens, as they protected a lead extended to 9-3 by Farrell’s third penalty after 46 minutes.

Billy Vunipola went off looking dazed after an accidental collision with Hartley, which is a worry given the England No 8’s history of concussion, before Farrell made it 12-3 from a wide angle with 12 minutes remaining.

In the 75th minute Wyles almost adorned the match with a try as he cut onto a scissors pass only to be halted by Dickson’s tackle. And JJ Hanrahan, the new arrival from Munster, chipped over a penalty to secure Northampton a last-minute bonus point, not that Saracens were too fussed by then.

Northampton B Foden (A Tuala, 69); J Elliott, G Pisi, L Burrell, G North; S Myler (JJ Hanrahan, 60), K Fotuali’i (L Dickson, 57); A Waller (E Waller, 64), D Hartley (M Haywood, 60), K Brookes (P Hill, 63), J Craig (M Paterson, 57), C Day, J Gibson, T Wood (capt), S Dickinson (T Harrison, 69).

Saracens A Goode; C Ashton, D Taylor (M Bosch, 61), B Barritt, C Wyles; O Farrell (C Hodgson, 70), R Wigglesworth; M Vunipola (R Barrington, 64), S Brits (J George, 50), Petrus Du Plessis (J Figallo, 64), G Kruis, A Hargreaves (capt, M Rhodes, 50), M Itoje, J Burger, B Vunipola (K Brown, 60).

Referee: L Pearce (Devon)

Northampton

Pens: Myler, Hanrahan

Saracens

Pens: Farrell 4

Attendance 15,169.

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