Saints Held Their Faith To Do The Impossible

Saracens 24 – 31 Northampton Saints

Northampton Saints head coach Jim Mallinder praised his sides breathtaking first half display as they defeated Saracens to go top of the Aviva Premiership table.

“I think tactically we got it right in that first half” said Mallinder.

“It’s always a difficult place to play here, poor conditions, but in the first half we played really well, got our tactics right, and got a good lead.”

It didn’t take long to get into the lead as the Saints scored their first try in the first minute of the game after Luther Burrell sent a message to the England selectors as he ran a great line to blast past the Saracens midfield to set up winger James Wilson with a long pass to score in the corner. Stephen Myler added the extras with a touchline conversion.

After Myler and his opposite fly half Charlie Hodgson both added penalties it was Wilson who extended the away sides lead touching down for his second try of the game. After a moment of magic from Lee Dickson as his perfectly weighted grubber kick sent the 31 year old winger through for a simple finish.

With Myler converting once again Mallinder’s men had a healthy 17 – 3 lead.

The Northampton scrum was dominating in the first 22 minutes and this was confirmed after destroying a five metre Saracens scrum and with Billy Vunipola spilling the ball it allowed Phil Dowson to pick up and crash over and with Myler missing his first kick of the game it left the scores at 22 – 3.

As Myler scored then missed the following penalties Sarries finally gave their fans something to cheer about as on the stroke of half time a strong rolling maul by the hosts pushed the Saints back and the ball was grounded by flanker Jackson Wray and as Hodgson missed the conversion the visitors went into the break the happiest.

Half – Time – Saracens 8 – 25 Northampton Saints

In the second half the hosts came out fighting after Myler cancelled out Hodgson’s early penalty on 59 minutes and when Alex Waller was sin – binned for the Saints, Saracens scored their second try shortly afterwards with the ball going out wide to centre Chris Wyles who squeezed over to score.

As Hodgson was still having a mix day with the boot this time his conversion hit the post to leave the score 28 – 16.

The Saints lead was getting cut even shorter after a jinking run by fullback Alex Goode and with quick, accurate passing to the left where they outnumbered the opponents defence and Wyles scored his second try in five minutes with Hodgson missing another conversion the gap was cut to just seven points with 10 minutes left.

However, with five minutes to go Myler made sure Northampton was going home with the win as he scored his fourth penalty and in last minute Hodgson claimed the losing bonus point with a penalty.

This victory made Northampton the first away team to ever win twice at Allianz Park.

Saracens head coach Mark McCall was left disappointed by a poor start from the hosts which saw them leak three tries in the first 25 minutes saying “The contrast between the two halves were too big. The first 25 minutes for us was unbelievably disappointing.

“I think we were second best at almost every area, but in particular in the scrum. We allowed what happened at the scrum during that 25 minute period to drain us of our energy across the board.”

McCall added “We weren’t sharp enough, weren’t intelligent enough, lacked intensity in really everything we did and the Saints were 25 – 3 up after 25 minutes. We gave ourselves a shot at the end to come back to 28 – 21 and we had a lot of momentum in those last eight or nine minutes.”

“I’m glad we showed our true colours in the second half, we looked like a team who had a bit of bite, a bit of edge, a bit of urgency.

“It would have been a good achievement to have pulled it back, but we gave ourselves far too much to do” said the Irishman.

Scorecard

1 min – Wilson (Try) – 0 – 5

2 mins – Myler (Con) – 0 – 7

7 mins – Hodgson (Pen) – 3 – 7

10 mins – Myler (Pen) – 3 – 10

13 mins – Wilson (Try) – 3 – 15

15 mins – Myler (Con) – 3 – 17

21 mins – Dowson (Try) – 3 – 22

31 mins – Myler (Pen) – 3 – 25

39 mins – Wray (Try) – 8 – 25

HT – Saracens 8 – 25 Saints

48 mins – Hodgson (Pen) – 11 – 25

59 mins – Myler (Pen) – 11 – 28

64 mins – Wyles (Try) – 16 – 28

69 mins – Wyles (Try) – 21 – 28

75 mins – Myler (Pen) – 21 – 31

80 mins – Hodgson (Pen) – 24 – 31

FT – Saracens 24 – 31 Saints