Following Northampton Saints’ 61-0 win over Newcastle Falcons, here are our five takeaways from a sold-out clash at Franklin’s Gardens.
The top line
Newcastle have found playing away from Kingston Park hard this year, but Northampton weren’t in a generous mood as they asserted their dominance from the off.
After just 15 minutes, Northampton had their bonus point thanks to scores from Alex Coles, Trevor Davison (2) and Alex Mitchell, and in all honesty, they were good value for that lead.
Whilst Newcastle put up more of a fight after this, the one-way traffic continued as Northampton added a fifth for good measure through Josh Kemeny.
A yellow card to Fin Smith threatened to burst their bubble, but it did the exact opposite as they added a sixth try through Tommy Freeman.
Northampton would have been excused for taking their foot off the gas in the second-half, but the scoring simply continued as Tom Pearson notched a quick-fire double.
After a spell on concentrated pressure from Newcastle, the Saints struck with one final effort through Rory Hutchinson, which added the cherry on top of a fine win.
The win now pushes the defending champions up to seventh (potentially temporarily though depending on the result of Big Game 16 between Harlequins and Leicester), and they can now start looking up the table once again.
Game in numbers
It was utterly ridiculous at times from the defending champions, and that dominance is reflected in the stats.
In attack, the Saints made a whopping 543 metres from their 139 carries – an average of 3.9 per carry – but crucially it was a full team effort in this department. Winger Freeman led the way with 12 carries across his stint, with Pearson racking up 11 and George Hendy adding 10 as well.
Northampton also managed to make 10 line breaks too, with Hendy leading the way with 2.
Defence was also a major part of the win today, and Northampton racked up some seriously big numbers in this department too. The Saints made a tidy 160 tackles in the 80 minutes, boasting a success rate of 85% too.
Just a really good showing from the hosts today, who were certainly good value for the win.
Rampant Northampton give timely reminder of class
This weekend has already seen Sale Sharks and Bath lay down statements, but Northampton also gave us a timely reminder of their true class against Newcastle with a truly rampant display.
Everything just seemed to click for them in attack, and it looked like they were back to the style of play that helped them win the title. Smith was up to his old tricks at fly-half, getting his side playing wider, more expansive rugby. Back three trio Freeman, Ollie Sleightholme and Hendy were a consistent threat as a result, as they were once again put through spaces.
They also beautifully blended that with some decent work up-front. Henry Pollock, Alex Coles, Chunya Munga, Kemeny and Pearson made themselves incredibly busy throughout and brought some serious intent in the carry.
You would have excused Northampton for taking it a tad easy in defence, after all they were in exceptional attacking touch, but they packed a serious punch in that department too. Again, Pearson, Kemeny and Coles brought heaps of physicality in defence with some crunching tackles.
It’s been pretty tough going for the reigning champions in the league so far, shown most by their defeat to Saracens last weekend, but yet they are capable of complete performances like this and could still worry the teams above them in the second half of the season. When they play this way, they are scary good, but the challenge for them now is if they can do this consistently.
Massive step back from Newcastle
As mentioned above, away games have been hard-going for Steve Diamond’s side, but this was just a massive step back from the Falcons. Despite the scoreline last weekend against Bath, they did give the table-toppers an almighty scare early on, and have taken the scalps of both Exeter and Saracens this year at home, but they looked a completely different team today in a dreadful display.
When Northampton’s attack gets going, it makes even the best defences look poor, but the Saints just ripped them to shreds with relative ease. Too many times Northampton managed to either beat a defender outright or slip through a tackle to get over the gainline, and rugby is a tough sport to play when you’re going backwards.
Diamond has been fairly open about his side’s attacking issues, to be fair, but today they just seemed devoid of ideas. Their scrum worked pretty well, earning penalties to march them up the pitch, but then when they got into those crucial areas they just turned to one-up rugby and were banged back consistently. This then gave them messy ball, which then led to a knock-on and the chance going begging.
We’ll add in the caveat they had three players drop out through injury at the 11th hour, and one of the conscripted men Jack Metcalf was arguably their best player on the day upon his introduction from the bench, but yet this team just looked so far off the pace against Northampton, which should really worry Diamond.
England watch
Northampton are blessed with a core of hungry English talent, and today saw a number of them put their hand up for a potential Six Nations call-up.
In the backline, Freeman struggled to find his feet in the Autumn, but he looked back to his best today with a brilliant display. Back three colleague Hendy was also very busy in both defence and attack and again gave a timely showing with clubmate George Furbank an injury concern for Steve Borthwick.
Tom Litchfield added some serious punch and speed to their midfield and looked to be that sort of centre Borthwick likes in his sides. Smith, as usual, came up with some lovely touches to get the attack purring and looked to have recaptured that form from last year. Mitchell was also fizzing about the park during his stint and looks to be building a good base of minutes after a lengthy layoff.
In the pack, double try-scorer Davison was in pretty decent touch and again showed why people are crying out for him to be involved in the match-day 23 for England. Back-rowers Pollock and Pearson were also superb in most departments.
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/northampton-v-newcastle-five-takeaways-as-england-men-put-hand-up-in-rampant-saints-win-over-dreadful-falcons
