Northampton Saints pulled no punches in this one-way shut-out at cinch Stadium, with a Tom Pearson hat-trick contributing to a 61-14 win. The Saints continue their undefeated run in the Investec Champions Cup, and become the first side to book their place in the last 16, with a comfortable 9-try home hammering of Aviron Bayonnais.
The match was finished as a contest after just half an hours play, as Northampton kicked into their revered top gear that has seen them march on to the top of the Premiership table. Six first half tries was an emphatic statement, and the hosts wasted no time in getting the fans up on their feet, in this chilliest of Friday night fixtures.
Saints exploded out of the gate like a bullet from a gun, with the opening try coming after just one minute. Centre Rory Hutchinson presented great footballing abilities, to execute a neat chip over the back-field from the left wing, with Tommy Freeman fastest to gather and ground the ball for an early try. Fin Smith made no mistake with the early attempt off the tee, and extended the early lead to 7-0.
Saints thought that they had their second try within five minutes, as hooker Curtis Langdon scrambled over the turf to score from close range. However, a TMO review ruled-out the front-rowers’ score, due to Alex Mitchell knocking the ball on with the slightest touch at the back of the preluding breakdown. Saints hit their stride, and Hutchinson’s ninth minute chip into the in-goal area would have led to their second try, if it wasn’t for the alert Aviron coverage.
A line-out move from the training ground then worked like clockwork, as the ball came soaring down to the stampeding run of Tom Pearson. The back-row cascaded his way through the Bayonne tackle attempts, and etched Saints’ second try onto the score-board. Smith’s sharpshooting continued with another well taken conversion. Bayonne then had to briefly drop a man and further test their defence, as Tevita Tatafu’s tip tackle was deemed worthy of a 16th minute yellow card.
It was then ‘seven heaven’ for Saints, as their number-sake Pearson was over for his brace, just seven minutes after he crossed for his first. The powerful back-row demonstrated why he is so highly rated for an England run, with a crashing carry through two Bayonne defenders, before he extended his reach over the line to score. Smith nailed the straight-forward conversion, with Northampton cruising against the French visitors.
Courtney Lawes presented an unbelievable work ethic to stop a Bayonne try, after Maxime Machenaud intercepted a loose pass and broke away downfield. Lawes back-tracked to bring the halfback to the deck, and was immediately over the ball to win the penalty at the ruck. The retired England international received a resounding ovation for his efforts and will be sorely missed come the Six Nations.
So soon after stopping a try, Lawes was over to score Northampton’s bonus point try all the way down the opposing end of cinch Stadium. After Mitchell fizzed the ball to the back rower at a rate of knots, Lawes threw a drop of the shoulder, and dummied the covering Bayonne defender to open up a gap, which he gladly ran through for the try. Lawes was a popular scorer around the sea of green, black and gold, as was Fin Smith who nailed his fourth consecutive conversion.
Northampton continued their dominant onslaught of Bayonne, with Langdon able to get on the score-sheet after his earlier efforts were ruled out. The hooker got his hands on the ball and forced his trundling pack over the line, following a well executed line-out drive. It was a five star first half from Fin Smith, who added the extras once again. The Saints closed out the one-sided first half as they started it, with a try that sent the capacity crowd off for some well earned refreshments to quench all of the first half’s cheering.
Sometimes the simplest plans work the best, and this was no better demonstrated than in Northampton’s sixth score of the evening, which came on the stroke of half-time. The Premiership leaders took a quick tap and go, shipped the ball to Alex Waller, and the prop was able to drive over to score from a handful of metres out. Amidst all the enthralling chip kicks and stunning strike moves, there is still space for the old fashioned ‘stick it up your jumper’ in the Champions Cup.
Tom Pearson was over to complete his hat-trick just five minutes after the re-start, with a contingent of Saints fans cheering on their way back to their seats. The flanker collected the ball out on the left hand side, and popped the ball to Freeman who was waiting on the touchline. A simple two-on-one followed to evade the last defender, for Pearson to wheel away and complete his hat-trick. An uncharacteristic miss from Fin Smith kept the score-line at 47-0.
Alex Waller was then over for his brace, with a try coming in similar fashion to his earlier score. Bayonne did their best efforts to halt the rolling maul, yet could not contain the prop’s subsequent drive from close-quarters. Smith got his shooting boots back on for the following conversion, as Northampton surpassed the half-century after just 48 minutes.
George Furbank put in the hit of the afternoon, with an expertly timed tackle sending an unfortunate Bayonne carrier into touch. The fullback ran out an impressive performance at Franklin’s Gardens, and voiced his contention for the upcoming England set-up.
Bayonne then thought that they had scored a consolation try just after the hour mark, as Maxime Mechanaud grounded the ball from close range. However, a TMO review spotted a wild Saints arm underneath the grounding, which kept the French side score-less for a few moments longer.
The travelling supporters finally had something solid to cheer, as replacement back Tom Spring cantered through the wall of green and black, in an impressive piece of individual skill. Thomas Dolhagaray added the conversion, for a second smaller cheer to ripple amongst the small contingent of fans in light blue and white jerseys.
Furbank then got the Northampton supporters back in voice, as he broke away through a gap in the staggered Aviron back-line. The Saints captain had options on either side, and shipped the ball right to Juarno Augustus, who then found a supporting Tom James to run in for the try. Smith’s metronomic kicking continued, and stretched the lead to 61-7 inside the last 10 minutes.
Despite the one-sided score-line, Bayonne had the final say in the scoring. After a series of pressure in the Northampton ‘red zone’, replacement scrum half Kleo Labarbe opted for the boot, and sent a neat chip kick into the Saints in-goal area. Fullback Aurelien Florain Callandret was fastest to react and grounded the score in front of traffic-beating Saints fans, who had started to leave Franklin’s Gardens.
Speaking in the post match media, Bayonne skills coach Nick Abendanon spoke about how his side just could not get a foothold in the match.
“We’ll have to speak to the players and understand what happened. You get put under that much pressure by a good team, it is relentless, like a wave just coming after you, and after you. You know, they’re (Northampton) so good at executing when they get a chance, they put us under a lot of pressure again on the short side, exploited those opportunities and then when you’re on the back-foot it’s just difficult to get a grip on the game.
“We had nothing to go for us, we were late getting over to every ruck and we just couldn’t get any momentum, we couldn’t get any field position. We couldn’t get any anything going so one of those very frustrating nights.”
Speaking in the post match media session, Northampton Saints Director of Rugby Phil Dowson expressed his delight with Tom Pearson’s hat-trick performance, and his continued push for the England team.
“He’s a very driven guy. We knew that when we signed them and the conversations we had with him and are starting to continue to push and we’ll continue to get loads of feedback from our coaches as well as England. And you know, he’s athletically a bit of a freak, and so therefore, you have loads and loads of technical detail, because he’s coachable, and he gets better.”
Dowson then highlighted how Courtney Lawes is a true mentor in the Northampton camp, and despite stepping down from England commitments, is not missing a beat in his efforts for the Saints.
“Over the last three seasons he has really taken on a mentorship role in terms of some of those (younger) guys, so the other guy that he talked to me about this week courts was Henry Pollock. So somebody who’s in England U20s, he’s got lots of quality in bits and pieces. So Courts got him under his wing in terms of finding, courts isn’t somebody who’s going to tell you exactly what to do but he is going to ask you to discover the best way for you to get ready for a game.
“Courtney at this point in his career doesn’t need to do every minute of training, so when he does train people are really aware of how he does it, and how he manages to switch off for training and then switch off to be nice and relaxed and calm off the pitch.”
NORTHAMPTON SAINTS: 61
TRIES: 9 (Freeman 1′, Pearson 13′, 20′, 45′, Lawes 27, Langdon 33′, Waller 40′, 48′, James 70′,)
CONVERSIONS: 8 (F. Smith 1′, 13′, 20′, 27′, 33′, 40′, 48′, 70′)
PENALTIES: 0
DROP GOALS: 0
YELLOW CARDS: 0
RED CARDS: 0
15. George Furbank (C), 14. Tommy Freeman, 13. Fraser Dingwall, 12. Rory Hutchinson, 11. Ollie Sleightholme; 10. Fin Smith, 9. Alex Mitchell; 1. Alex Waller, 2. Curtis Langdon, 3. Trevor Davison, 4. Temo Mayanavanua, 5. Alex Coles, 6. Courtney Lawes, 7. Tom Pearson, 8. Sam Graham.
Replacements: 16. Sam Matavesi, 17. Emmanuel Iyogun, 18. Elliot Millar-Mills, 19. Alex Moon, 20. Juarno Augustus, 21. Angus Scott-Young, 22. Tom James, Tom Litchfield.
AVIRON BAYONNAIS: 14
TRIES: 2 (Spring 64′, Callandret 77′)
CONVERSIONS: 2 (Dolhagaray 64′, 77′)
PENALTIES: 0
DROP GOALS: 0
YELLOW CARDS: 1 (Tatafu 16′)
RED CARDS: 0
Bayonne: 15. Aurelien Callandret; 14. Nadir Megdoud, 13. Cheikh Tiberghien, 12. Riko Buliruarua, 11. Remy Baget, 10. Thomas Dolhagaray, 9. Maxime Machenaud 1. Swan Cormenier 2. Facundo Bosch 3. Tevita Tatafu 4. Denis Marchois (C) 5. Manuel Leindekar 6. Remi Bourdeau 7. Baptiste Heguy 8. Rodrigo Bruni.
Replacements: 16. Vincent Giudicelli, 17. Matis Perchaud, 18. Pascal Cotet, 19. Lucas Paulos, 20. Uzair Cassiem, 21. Kleo Labarbe, 22. Tom Spring, 23. Yan Lestrade.
POST MATCH REACTIONS FROM PLAYERS AND COACHES TO FOLLOW.