Northampton Saints 40 Leicester Tigers 17
An East Midlands derby that effectively spelled the end of Leicester Tigers' hopes of reaching the Gallagher Premiership play-offs, and importantly, provided compelling evidence that Northampton Saints are the real deal.
As the competition's figurehead in the Champions Cup semi-finals, Phil Dowson felt it necessary to rotate his squad following European knockout victories over Munster and the Bulls, leaving out big names such as Courtney Lawes, Fin Smith and Tommy Freeman were left. George Furbank starts at fly-half.
It was a bold decision, given the importance this match means to both groups of supporters, and yet towards the end this proved to be a brutal demolition of a Tigers side who had asked plenty of questions of their opponents in the first half, but found himself without an answer to the Saints' relentless attacking play after the break.
The rivals who saw this match as a moment of vulnerability for Dowson's team were deeply disappointed. The most impressive thing about this side is their ability to rise to the challenge and solve problems without losing sight of their attacking instincts, making them a joy to watch.
With just three rounds to go, Dowson's side have an impressive seven-point lead over second-placed Saracens. The big games keep coming, with a trip to Twickenham on Saturday to take on Harlequins, another Champions Cup semi-finalist and league title contender. But on this form they look unstoppable in their bid to win at least a first Premiership title since 2014.
The decisive moment came when Leicester center Solomone Kata was sent off just on the hour mark for a frontal tackle on Fraser Dingwall. The Saints led 18-17 at the time, and from that point on there was no going back. Immediately Dowson introduced Fin Smith from the bench as if to turn the screw, and Saints pushed to score three more tries.
The story continues
Robbie Smith was run over from a lineout, before Fin Smith teamed up with Freeman to set up George Hendy for another full-field try before Tom James struck when Phil Cokanasiga spilled the ball on his line after a rising counter. attack involving Furbank and James Ramm. A 30-yard drop goal from Fin Smith completed the rout.
"We're not making any statements, I'm just happy to have won the derby," said Dowson, who set the tone with his measured calm despite his relative inexperience as director of rugby. This weekend we go to Twickenham to face Quins and we know what their record is there, so it's one thing after another, but that's a real positive.
"That's where we want to be. As a group of players, we said at the start of the season that these are the matches you want to play in. You want to play Munster, you want to play them home and away. That is amazing. They are one of the legendary sides in European rugby. We all want to take up that challenge and I think Quins has already sold 45,000 tickets. Perfect. Let's see who we are next week.
"Let's see if the guys who get the chance next week represent Saints in the same way we did today. I said at half-time that the first 40 minutes looked a lot more like Leicester's game plan than our game plan. In the second half the whole atmosphere was much better in terms of what we were trying to do and get our game on the pitch.
"We talked about whether we can reach the end of the season in a good position from an availability point of view, from a physical and psychological point of view. That's what we tried to do this week."
The flourish with which Saints ended the match was no reflection on the first half, which saw Leicester dominate for long periods with an aggressive defense and their ability to turn the slump into a mess.
Leicester were indeed worth their early lead, taking advantage of a yellow card shown to Elliot Millar Mills for a head-on tackle on Ollie Chessum and moments later Julian Montoya scored a try from a driving lineout maul.
Saints' off-loading play was beginning to impress but they were still down 10-6 at the break after two Furbank penalties, with Alex Mitchell held up on the line.
But two tries within six minutes of the restart turned the match on its head, with first hooker Curtis Langdon showing off an outside defender's finish before Jamie Shillcock's deliberate knock-on earned him a yellow card and a penalty try.
A Jasper Wiese try from a lineout deceptively brought the game back to life before Kata's red ensured Saints dominated the final quarter.
Dan McKellar, Leicester's director of rugby, admitted his side's second-half performance was not good enough, pointing to their discipline.
"Since the World Cup we have seen that they have tried to mitigate the consequences wherever possible," he said of Kata's red card. "I thought yellow was fair enough. It wasn't blatant foul play, it was a rugby accident, yellow card and 10 minutes. But they thought it was a red card, so we're going through the process now. It was one of them [the turning [points]. Before that we had two yellow cards. The second half just wasn't good enough. Today we were badly beaten. I'm not even really worried about the playoffs, I'm just worried about performance.
Match details
Scoring order: 0-5, Montoya tries, 0-7, Pollard con; 3-7, Furbank pin; 3-10, Pollard pin; 6-10, Furbank pin; 11-10, Langdon try, 18-10, penalty try; 18-15, Wiese tries, 18-17, Pollard con; 23-17, R Smith tries, 25-17, Furbank con; 30-17 Hendy tries, 32-17, Furbank con; 37-17, T James tries; 40-17 Smith dropped goal;
Saints from Northampton: J Ramm; G Hendy, T Litchfield (T Freeman 56), F Dingwall, T Seabrook (F Smith 60); G Furbank, A Mitchell (TJames 71); A Waller (T Haffar 49), C Langdon (R Smith 59), E Millar Mills (T Davison 59), A Moon, T Mayanavanua (T Lockett 60), A Coles, L Ludlam (S Graham 70), J Augustus.
Leicester Tigers: J Shillock (M Bruin 56), F Steward, D Kelly (P Cokanasiga 68), S Kata, O Hassell-Collins; H Pollard, J v Poortvliet (B Youngs 64); J Cronin (F van Wyk 54), J Montoya (C Clare 54), D Cole (W Hurd 46), H Wells (K Hatherell 64), O Chessum, F Carnduff, T Reffell (O Cracknell 38), J Wiese.
Referee: C Ridley (RFU)
