Morris drops a heavy Twickenham hint

Northampton 34 Saracens 25

A couple of delicious Anglo-French confrontations went the way of the rosbifs, but they were rare highlights of an all-round mish-mash of a match that eloquently summed up why these two teams are off the pace in the Premiership.

Northampton's Robbie Morris had a good go at Christian Califano in a possible rehearsal of a Twickenham duel on Saturday. Meanwhile, Saracens' largely listless full-back, Thomas Castaignède, must have been filled with awed "zut alors" at the thundering form of Saints' England wing, Ben Cohen.

Buck Shelford, Saracens' coach, will have a Kiwi's detachment over forthcoming events at HQ, and in any case he will have enough on his plate, digesting the lessons of this return to his Franklin's Gardens stomping ground. Shelford cannot have enough video tape in his machine to review all the things that went wrong for his side, and that is to take the charitable view that the one-time Saint, a hero here at the end of his playing career a decade ago, knows which buttons to press.

Saracens looked dreadfully disorganised, with only individualistic endeavour from Richard Hill, Kris Chesney and Tim Horan, standing in as captain for the concussed Kyran Bracken, to give them forward momentum. A badly broken nose in an accidental clash removed Kevin Sorrell after only 17 minutes, but other wounds for Saracens were self-inflicted.

Northampton, too, have been fitful performers of late, though they were dominant in building a lead of 20-6 in the opening half hour. Tries by Cohen, from a cross-kick by Nick Beal, and Matt Dawson, finishing off Grant Seely's short-range charge from a scrum, were accompanied by Andrew Blowers in murderous mood at the breakdown, killing and creating in equal measure.

Saracens would not have been as favourably placed as trailing by nine points at the interval had not some over-confidence from Dawson gifted them a try in the third minute of added time. The England scrum-half ruined his own sharp break into the Saracens 22 by flipping a stray pass behind his back that was scooped up by Darragh O'Mahony, and the Irishman sped off up the left touchline. Castaignède took up the running with 40 metres to go, and managed to evade the clutches of Paul Grayson and Blowers.

Saracens needed what the coaching vernacular would call a "big 10 minutes" at the start of the second half but they got a limping Castaignède bearing the hangdog countenance of a man whose confit de canard had gone off overnight. Castaignède played on, and did just enough to impede a charge from Cohen, but the Frenchman was getting to know his own 22 like the back of his hand.

Northampton had a try for Tom Smith chalked off for crossing, but the Scotland prop eventually got his score, 18 minutes into the second half, when he bundled past Dan Kirton from a line-out drive. Grayson smacked over the conversion, and repeated the trick from the widest angle when his side got their bonus-point try five minutes later. Seely was on the end of the threequarter line after Dawson tapped a kick to himself. The preamble had involved Horan being shown the yellow card for killing the ball; incongruously for a mild-mannered operator, that meant a stint in the sin-bin to add to his midweek citing for a punch during last week's defeat at home to Gloucester.

While Shelford's Saints counterpart, his old All Black team-mate Wayne Smith, gave Morris a rest for the final quarter, Saracens somehow got within range of extricating a bonus point. Sloppy Northampton handling allowed Craig Yandell and Morgan Williams to set up a try for Chesney, and, with a minute remaining, Andy Goode wriggled through. Goode's two conversions, in addition to a pair of first-half penalties, gave him 15 points overall. But the points which mattered were made by Northampton.

Northampton: N Beal; B Reihana, C Hyndman, J Leslie, B Cohen; P Grayson, M Dawson; T Smith, D Richmond (S Thompson, 59), R Morris (M Stewart, 59), M Lord, M Connors, A Blowers (R Hunter, h-t; M Soden, 75), G Seely, B Pountney (capt).

Saracens: T Castaignède; B Johnston, K Sorrell (B Sparg, 17), T Horan (capt), D O'Mahony; A Goode, D Kirton (M Williams, 64); C Califano, M Cairns (R Russell, 53), M Storey (J Marsters, 64), A Benazzi (C Yandell, 17-30), S Hooper (Yandell, 72), R Peacey, K Chesney, R Hill.

Referee: D Pearson (Northumberland).