Northampton Saints v Bath: Five takeaways as England international acts as the 'sole of the Shoe Army' on day of 'springing leaks' in defence

Following Northampton Saints’ 71-48 win over Bath at Franklin’s Gardens, here are our five key takeaways from the PREM Rugby clash.

The top line

Anyone tuning in late at DPD Franklin’s Gardens could be forgiven for thinking they’d stumbled on a cricket score, and by the end Saints were 71 for 7 with Bath all out for 48. April’s meeting finished 41-38, which at the time looked like a shootout, but this one went considerably further, with 18 tries shared between the sides and a combined 119 points, the second-highest in the league’s history behind the 127 Saints and Bristol put up at the same ground in May.

The man in the middle was Matthew Carley, the most exacting referee in the league and normally the official least likely to let a game run away from everybody. Seeing him preside over this was like watching a Swiss train pull in twenty minutes late with the driver waving cheerfully from the cab. Carley let it flow because both sides wanted to play, and neither defence could stop the other one doing so.

Strangest of all, the most box-office player in English rugby barely featured in the highlights. Henry Pollock made 15 tackles, fourth on the pitch, but didn’t make the top ten for carries, and his most memorable contribution was standing in at scrum-half for a lineout move. Callum Chick did the heavy carrying instead, 13 of them, whilst packing down on the flank and letting Pollock lean in at the base of the scrum on Saints ball.

The sole of the Shoe Army

Ollie Sleightholme finished with a hat-trick, 101 running metres, nine defenders beaten and two clean breaks, top of all three lists, and every one of his tries came by a different route. The first, on 17 minutes, came from a set play built to exploit a narrow defence: Saints kicked a penalty to the corner, went long to the back of the lineout with Alex Mitchell in the line and Pollock at nine, ran three men short into the midfield, brought James Pater into the line and let the full-back fire a 35-metre pass to the left wing. Bath had packed in so tightly that there was nobody out there.

The second came on the counter, Tommy Freeman breaking out from a Bath attack on the Saints 22 and the ball going left through the hands, and the third was off a scrum, Sleightholme coming in at second receiver and going through untouched. The Shoe Army made itself heard each time, and they’ve every reason to, because their winger is in the form of his life.

Two half-back pairings, two ways to run a game

Both sets of half-backs were excellent, but they went about it in completely different ways, and each man’s method was a fair picture of how his side attacked.

Finn Russell stood absurdly flat, attacking the line himself and passing in front of the man, and Bath followed him: smash it up, recycle fast and go again. His offload put Santi Carreras over on eight minutes, his quick tap penalty set up Charlie Griffin’s try, and his pass over the top for Carreras’s second, after a Tom Carr-Smith 50:22, was as good as anything all afternoon.

Fin Smith worked more through the loop, coming round and distributing, and Saints were subtler with it, using big carries to commit defenders before shifting the point of attack and sending runners through the seam. He scored the opening try himself after JJ van der Mescht took three Bath defenders to stop him and the fold defence stepped in to cover, which left the gap on the outside. Smith threw 22 passes and kicked from hand only once in the first half; Russell kicked twice. Neither 10 had any interest in kicking the ball away, which goes some way to explaining the scoreline.

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His partner Mitchell also seems to have given England something to think about. With the game at 38-41 and swinging back and forth, it needed a moment of individual brilliance, and he provided it in the 56th minute. From a Saints scrum 38 metres out, he broke down the open side, where Bath had a reshuffled back row following Miles Reid’s early departure and Russell defending wide, grubbered through, regathered and scored on his own.

It was the try that put Saints in front for good, and it came straight off a set piece that was flawless by half-time, 100 per cent at scrum and lineout against Bath’s 75 and 67. Mitchell was at the heart of almost everything Saints did well, sharp around the fringes and quick to punish any loose defender, and England’s coaches will have liked what they saw.

Bath’s smash and grab so nearly paid off

Bath deserve real credit, because for long spells they played the smarter rugby. They invited Saints to kick, which Saints mostly declined to do, and played with cheek and impudence, none more so than Carreras, who trapped a contestable with his foot and flicked it up into his hands, finished with two tries and made 49 metres. Arthur Green carried 16 times, more than anyone on the pitch, and scored twice.

Their best spell came with Josh Bayliss in the sin bin for not rolling away. Freeman scored from the resulting penalty to put Saints 19-14 up, but Bath then scored 12 points with 14 men, Archie Griffin crashing over off a basketball pass from Carr-Smith and Kepu Tuipulotu breaking straight from the restart to put Green away. Tuipulotu finished with two turnovers, the most in the game. When Green scored again immediately after half-time, Bath were 36-26 up. Then, four minutes later, Carreras fumbled a routine pass with an overlap outside him and Pater picked up and ran 40 metres, a 14-point swing that turned the afternoon.

Defence and restarts top next week’s training agenda

Both coaches will spend the coming week on the same two subjects. By half-time Saints’ tackle success stood at 78% and Bath’s at 75, with 26 missed tackles between them, and it didn’t improve after the break. Curtis Langdon led the way with 17 tackles and Alex Coles and Cleopas Kundiona made 16 each, so plenty of people were trying, but the system in front of them kept springing leaks.

Saints’ restarts were a particular problem, mishandled or poorly chased on almost every occasion, and Bath scored directly from two of them, Tuipulotu’s break on 33 minutes and Green’s second straight after half-time, when Saints simply didn’t guard the blindside. Bath’s own discipline failed them late on, Ollie Lawrence yellow-carded on 62 minutes for killing a ruck as Saints went fast and deep from their own 22, and Sleightholme completed his hat-trick within a minute. Coles, who also scored and made four defenders beaten, and Freeman, with his second try on 75 minutes, took Saints to 71 points and the win.

READ MORE: Northampton Saints v Bath: Result, scorers, match stats, line-ups