Saints show Cardiff scant mercy

Cardiff 0 Northampton 31

Less than two minutes had passed when Rob Appleyard, a good 16st worth of Welsh vitriol, lined up Chris Hyndman, still three months short of his 21st birthday, with the apparent intention of sending him back across the Severn Bridge well ahead of the Northampton team bus. Appleyard put so much of himself into the tackle that the entire bloody history of cross-border rivalry might have been contained within it. And Hyndman stood strong. In fact, he barely batted an eyelid. Cardiff knew then that this would be a long and humiliating afternoon.

Seconds later, the Midlanders were ahead through the boot of Paul Grayson. After 10 minutes, they were 17-0 up and out of sight. At half-time, they were 24 points to the good and coasting; had they not lost concentration in the second half, they would have scored 60. As it was, Cardiff were left pondering one of the most comprehensive defeats in 120-odd years of rugby at the Arms Park.

David Young, their coach, was 50 per cent embarrassed at the scale of the demolition, and 50 per cent relieved that it was not a whole lot worse. "Not only did they beat us on the scoreboard, they beat us in every area of the game," he confessed.

Yet his opposite number bemoaned a lack of precision and application that restricted the visitors to four tries rather than eight or nine. "We let an opportunity slip there," groaned Wayne Smith, uncomfortably aware that Northampton might pay for their seasonal charity if this tightest of Heineken groups is decided on try-count.

Smith would not swap his problems for Young's, though. Cardiff were badly under-strength, with Andrew Lewis, John Tait, Martyn Williams, Pieter Muller and Rhys Williams all incapacitated by stresses and strains of one form or another. The political uncertainty surrounding the future of club rugby in Wales also did little for confidence in the build-up to a meeting with one of Europe's hotter acts.

Even so, there were 15 professionals clad in blue and black yesterday afternoon, and their skill levels were lamentable. Even the class players, Iestyn Harris and Jamie Robinson among them, struggled to put one foot in front of the other.

By contrast, Northampton's top-of-the-bill performers lived up to their reputations. If Tom Smith is not the most complete footballing prop in world rugby, his superior must be locked away in a cell somewhere. If Andrew Blowers does not grace next year's World Cup in Australia – unless the New Zealand selectors abandon their policy on foreign-based players, which is not terribly likely, he will be watching from his armchair – the tournament will be much the worse for his absence. "I know of nobody better," agreed his coach, "but as I want to keep him at Northampton, I would prefer it if people kept quiet about him."

These two outstanding forwards were at the heart of Northampton's initial and decisive burst of attacking brilliance. Smith ploughed through Appleyard for the opening try after a long passage of play orchestrated by Grayson, while Blowers ran diagonally to the left corner after Hyndman and John Leslie had capitalised on some amateur-hour fumbling by the Cardiff forwards.

The third try was just a little iffy, as Ben Cohen may have been a metre ahead of the ball when Grayson found him with a cross-kick six minutes before the break, but the build-up involving Smith, Hyndman, Budge Pountney and Rob Hunter deserved its reward. It was of a different calibre to anything Cardiff had to offer.

Northampton: Tries: Smith, Blowers, Cohen, Budgen. Conversions: Grayson 4. Penalty: Grayson.

Cardiff: D Van Vuuren; A Sullivan, J Robinson, N Robinson, C Morgan (D Dewdney, 64); I Harris (M Allen, 56), R Smith; P Rogers, L Collins, D Young (T Payne, 64), H Senekal, A Jones, R Appleyard, R Sowden-Taylor (D Baugh, 56), E Lewis (capt).

Northampton: N Beal; O Ripol (J Sleightholme, 57), C Hyndman, J Leslie (capt), B Cohen; P Grayson (J Brooks, 67), I Vass (J Howard, 45); T Smith, S Thompson (D Richmond, 64), R Morris (C Budgen, 42), S Williams, R Hunter (J Phillips, 57), A Blowers, A Pountney, M Soden (S Hepher, 70).

Referee: J Judtger (France).