Saracens vs Northampton match report: Courtney Lawes lame but Saints go marching on

Saracens 15 Northampton 20

Northampton's Paul Hill takes on Saracens' Ben Spencer (Getty)

Northampton came here as the only team to have beaten Saracens twice on this ground; now they are the only team to do it three times and guess what? The teams will meet again at Allianz Park in the European Champions Cup quarter-finals in April.

If that sounds a worrying portent for England’s European standard-bearers of recent seasons, Saracens know they will soon be reinforced by the currently suspended Schalk Brits and Chris Ashton and their missing international players – as will Saints, but to a lesser extent.

Saracens had Alex Goode and Jamie George in the starting line-up, to keep in shape before likely bench duty for England against Wales next Saturday, and each man did some fine things with ball in hand.

But Northampton’s defence, led by the flankers Jamie Gibson and Tom Wood, made the home team virtual strangers from the Saints’ 22. And the Saints fly-half Stephen Myler collected 15 of his team’s points from two penalties, two conversions and a try in slightly shambolic circumstances in the 35th minute.

Saracens’ next date is with the bottom club London Irish in the Premiership’s pioneering trip to New York on Saturday, and they may have to boost their stand-in fly-half Nils Mordt’s confidence if he makes the starting line-up. With England’s Owen Farrell putting his feet up in the grandstand, and Charlie Hodgson out injured, Mordt endured a difficult afternoon that ended with quizzical looks from team-mates when he kicked the ball dead to accept the losing bonus point.

It had all begun with another irregular starter, the scrum-half Ben Spencer, kicking two penalties for Saracens to lead 6-0. And when Northampton had three attacking line-outs repelled, the Sarries “wolfpack” attitude looked in good nick, even though the original guiding hand belonging to defence coach Paul Gustard is now being employed by the national team.

The Premiership leaders and champions have dropped points to Wasps and Sale during this Six Nations period, and this would be their third loss of the season overall, but Mark McCall, Saracens’ head coach, was seeing his glass half-full. “It’s been tough but we have accumulated 16 points in six games and that keeps us in the heat of the hunt,” said McCall, while his chairman Nigel Wray bemoaned the apparently cockeyed regulation that will deny his club £160,000 due to not fielding enough England-qualified players.

Courtney Lawes, the Northampton lock who might not have kept his England bench place for the Wales match, with Wasps’ Joe Launchbury regaining fitness, looks likely to be out of it anyway after being helped off with an injured left ankle – it was twisted in a tackle by Hayden Smith.

This was around the time Spencer went to the sin-bin for hands in a ruck, and Myler danced through a woefully disorganised defence for his try after Saracens had set up a ruck after a line-out only for Goode, filling in at half-back, to be charged down by Gibson, and Wood gathered and fed Myler.

Lee Dickson scored Saints’ second try with a burrowing finish after Victor Matfield secured a line-out as part of a pattern of the Saints mixing kicks for position and points. It was odd they eschewed a goal attempt late on that might have denied Saracens a point. “Any win here is pleasing but I think it will be a different game in the Champions Cup,” said McCall’s counterpart, Jim Mallinder.

Saracens: A Goode; M Ellery (M Bosch, 62), D Taylor, B Barritt (capt), C Wyles; N Mordt, B Spencer (sin-bin, 32-42; N de Kock, 69); R Barrington, J George, P du Plessis (J Figallo, 49), H Smith, J Hamilton, M Rhodes, K Brown (J Burger, 48), J Wray.

Northampton Saints: B Foden; K Pisi, G Pisi, L Burrell, T Collins; S Myler, L Dickson (capt; T Kessell, 74); A Waller (E Waller, 65), M Haywood (R Marshall, 80), K Brookes (P Hill, 56), C Lawes (J Craig, 32), V Matfield (S Dickinson, 69), J Gibson, T Wood, T Harrison.

Referee: T Foley (Somerset)