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Harlequins put on finishing clinic to down Northampton
By PA
Harlequins hooker Jack Musk scored two tries as his side recorded a bonus-point 35-29 victory at home to Northampton in the Gallagher Premiership.
At one stage the visitors trailed 28-10 before staging a spirited rally which had Quins hanging on, but Saints will rue giving their opponents a 14-point start and their inability to take a number of golden chances.
Quins gave them a lesson in finishing with Lennox Anyanwu, Luke Northmore and Cadan Murley also scoring tries. Marcus Smith converted all five.
Lewis Ludlam, Tommy Freeman, George Furbank and Tom James scored Saints’ tries, with Dan Biggar converting three and adding a penalty.
Northampton made a dreadful start by conceding two converted tries in the opening six minutes.
Their woes started when their scrum retreated rapidly at the first engagement. They were penalised and Smith kicked for the corner before Musk drove over from the resulting line-out.
Careless handling from Saints then saw Joe Marchant pounce on the loose ball and send Anyanwu on a 50-metre run to the line for the second try.
Northampton rallied to dominate the remainder of the first quarter but continued to surrender possession with poor ball-retention.
Tom Collins and Emmanuel Iyogun both fumbled in promising positions so it was left to Biggar to put his side on the scoreboard with a straightforward penalty.
Three minutes later, Quins extended their lead with a superb try. They moved the ball sweetly along their three-quarter line to Northmore, who ran 30 metres to score on his 50th appearance for the club.
Despite trailing 21-3, the visitors had enjoyed more possession and territory and their efforts were finally rewarded when skipper Ludlam crashed over under the posts.
Saints immediately followed this up with the move of the match, which covered over 70 metres and deserved a score, but Rory Hutchinson was forced into touch in the dead-ball area so Quins held a 21-10 lead at the interval.
Three minutes after the restart, Northampton suffered a setback when their Australian lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto was yellow-carded for a high challenge.
Quins capitalised on his absence by scoring their bonus-point try when Musk finished off a driving line-out.
Salakaia-Lota returned from the sin-bin in time to see Freeman bring Saints back into contention by scoring their second try.
A comeback looked on the cards but Murley took advantage of some weak defending to squeeze in and put daylight between the teams.
Northampton secured two deserved bonus points late on with converted tries from Furbank and James.
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Latest Comments
Don’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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