At 7.16pm, just around the time those Sunday night blues kick in, England’s Champions Cup cohort finally had something to cheer about. It was not pretty but after seven of their Prem rivals had failed to claim victory in the opening round of the competition, Saints survived a sizeable scare from Cardiff to put one on the board for the Prem, thanks in no small part to the excellent George Hendy.
It might be harsh on some of the performances this weekend – Gloucester were immense in drawing with Bordeaux, Exeter mightily unlucky to be beaten in Toulouse – but zero wins would have been a crushing embarrassment for a league that has been feted for its attacking exploits so far this season. One out of eight is not a lot to shout about as it is.
Ultimately first-half tries from youngsters James Pater and Toby Thame and second-half scores from Hendy and Fraser Dingwall were enough to see off Cardiff. Hendy also made the first try, stopped a certain Cardiff score and enhanced his reputation as a player who can make things happen for the Prem champions. “That has always been his forte, his super strength, George can break the game open, he can make breaks other people can’t,” said Northampton’s director of rugby, Phil Dowson.
Credit to the visitors, however, who were less than impressed with the scheduling of this fixture given they run out again just five days later and felt forced to heavily rotate as a result. They scored two impressive tries and midway through the second half had Northampton fans fearing an upset.
Cardiff’s frustrations are understandable. The head coach, Corniel van Zyl, confirmed the club made representations to the tournament organisers EPCR in the hope of moving the fixture to earlier in the weekend but received short shrift. “Bonkers,” was the assessment of Cardiff’s plight by Dowson. Accordingly, Van Zyl rang the changes but there was a first appearance for Taulupe Faletau since March. Northampton opted to chop and change too with Tommy Freeman, Henry Pollock, Alex Coles and Emmanuel Iyogun left out of the matchday 23.
Sideways rain will always be a leveller and the opening 10 minutes here left you longing for the sugar rush of last weekend’s 119-point try fest. The first moment of quality yielded the first try, however. Hendy swerved his way through the Cardiff defence and charged clear, feeding the supporting Alex Mitchell, whose floated inside pass found Pater. Saints’ second try came after Rory Hutchinson’s inventive diagonal kick forced a Northampton scrum five metres out. Mitchell fed Hutchinson, who shipped on to Thame and there was no stopping the Northampton inside centre.
A period of scrappiness ensued and Cardiff certainly had their moments. They thought they had scored after a clever strike play near halfway put Mason Grady through a gap with Tom Manz appearing to go over. The referee, Jérémy Rozier, at the suggestion of the TMO, disallowed the score, however, insisting the ball had been dislodged in the tackle.
After the break an interception from the covering Pater denied Cardiff a certain score on the right but to their credit the visitors kept hammering away and after a tap-and-go penalty, the outside-centre Harri Millard had the strength to force his way over the line. Jarrod Evans’s conversion brought Cardiff to within a score.
And when Northampton’s fly-half Anthony Belleau was sent to the sin-bin for infringing near his own line on the hour mark, Cardiff were within two points when Grady was worked into space on the right. Evans, under pressure from the charging Ollie Sleightholme, missed the conversion however.
Saints swiftly made him pay and after Cardiff failed to clear their lines on the restart, Dingwall put Hendy through a gap and the Northampton wing juggled the ball towards the line before gathering just in time to score. For good measure Hendy then rubber-stamped his fine performance by chasing down Josh Adams on the left. The 31-year-old Wales winger has lost a yard of pace but it was a significant intervention from Hendy, effectively extinguishing Cardiff’s hopes of victory.
Dingwall added a fourth for Northampton at the death rounding off a far more workmanlike victory than eight days earlier. “The joy of it is both, there’s a balance [of both types of games],” added Dowson. “The stats will say only Saints won but I don’t think the English sides are too far away.”
