A battered Tom Wood, having led his team to victory in the face of a fearful assault from Montpellier, expressed regret that his team’s failure to win enough of these tight games had cost Alex King his job as Northampton’s attack coach.
“It’s tough when an individual carries the can for a collective underachievement,” Wood said of King’s departure, announced only the day before.
“I guess firstly on a human level it is really disappointing. Kingy’s a family man, and it’s a livelihood at the end of the day. I only wish we could have done better for him, got those results over the line. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this position.”
Northampton will not be seeking a replacement in the short term. Alan Dickens, the defence coach, will turn his mind towards the attack, and Jim Mallinder, the director of rugby, hinted that he may fish his tracksuit out of the wardrobe too. Meanwhile, the end of the King era, which lasted just over three years, has made an impression within the dressing room.
“It came a little bit out of the blue,” Wood said. “It’s a wake-up call for everybody. A couple of years ago we were Premiership champions. And the year after that we finished top of the table. One bad season and a dodgy start to this, and all of a sudden everyone’s job’s on the line. That’s a realisation of how cut-throat professional sport is.”
Nevertheless, Wood stood defiant after the tumultuous final collisions of this intense match had finally stopped echoing. He even managed to have a pop at dear old friends Leicester, when he vowed that the Saints remain as ambitious as ever, despite their recent woes.
He said: “You only have to look at a team like Leicester. They’ve been terrible in the opening few rounds, everyone writes them off – and they’re always back in the top four at the end of the season. We’ve got a bit of an uphill struggle, but we’ll never write ourselves off even if everyone else does.”
This two-point victory to open their Champions Cup campaign was secured by a last‑minute penalty by Stephen Myler. It owed much to character, even if they started it off with a sweetly worked try, as if in tribute to King.
With or without the relevant coach, attack on an evening like this was never going to develop much beyond the full‑frontal variety. The game’s two tries were the exceptions to the rule, one at either end of the first half. Calum Clark’s early score featured sweet interventions from Harry Mallinder and the excellent Louis Picamoles, against his alma mater, and Montpellier’s reply was a thing of beauty, Nemani Nadolo’s trample and offload the highlight of a move finished by Francois Steyn. You wondered why the visitors did not try that sort of thing more often.
And then you looked at the size of them – and the steady rain that enveloped Franklin’s Gardens after the sun went down. Jim Mallinder described Montpellier’s as the biggest pack he’d ever seen. Two 6ft 7in, 20st behemoths in the second row caused enough trouble, then there was the flanker Jacques du Plessis, a slip of a lad at 6ft 7in and 19st. Two Georgian props packing 19st into their 6ft frames developed the theme, not to mention Nadolo, the 19st winger – and that’s before we’ve considered the man running the show.
Jake White, the South African recently touted for the England job, most obviously by himself, has no truck with attack coaches at all. Montpellier pounded Northampton from start to finish, from the skies and at close quarters. Had they taken their points as efficiently as Northampton, no amount of spirit would have averted another home defeat for the Saints. “There were some monsters out there,” Wood said. “I would say they are bigger than anything we have faced. There are always standout players and big, heavy individuals, but as a collective unit that was something else.”
Next stop Castres this weekend. They do not exactly tread softly out there, either. Northampton can forget about the niceties of attack for a while yet.
Northampton Foden; K Pisi (Wilson 65), G Pisi (Hutchinson 68), Mallinder, North; Myler, Groom (Dickson 58); A Waller, Haywood (Clare 72), Brookes (Hill 67), Dickinson (Ratuniyarawa 63), Paterson, Wood (capt), Clark (Harrison 65), Picamoles.
Try Clark. Con Myler. Pens Myler 3.
Montpellier Fall (capt; Michel 31); O’Connor, Dumoulin, Steyn, Nadolo; Botica (Martin 54), White; Nariashvili (Watremez 61), Mamukashvili (Ruffenach 72), Kubriashvili (Jannie du Plessis 54), Mikautadze (Ouedraogo 54), Willemse, Battut, Jacques du Plessis, Spies (Qera 54).
Try Steyn. Pens Botica, Steyn 2.
Referee Nigel Owens (Wales). Attendance 14,099.
