Northampton can now all but give up on looking up the table. This defeat leaves them seven points adrift of fourth-placed Leicester with two games left to play. Their attention now turns to those behind in the race for Europe. Another win should do it for them here but such preoccupations represent the consequences of a disappointing season.
Leicester it is who march on from another rousing east-Midlands derby to what is looking like a second semi-final. That represents the fruits of a rather better season, even if points-wise there is just those seven between them. It might as well be 70.
The Tigers spent most of this match on the back foot but, as has been increasingly the way under Aaron Mauger, their deadliness when they had the ball was far more pronounced than that of their old rivals. Most of the eye-catching performances were put in by Northampton players but their composure at crucial moments let them down; too many passes sent to ground – one of them, decisively, sent to a man on the other side. Northampton pressed throughout, right to the end of a stirring encounter.
This fixture is a feisty affair at the best of times. Does playing for a place in the play-offs make any difference? Difficult to say, but there was certainly no letup. There were a few on the Northampton side playing for a way back in to the England squad too – and a young man at No8, Teimana Harrison, who has been tipped of late to join them there.
Sure enough, Harrison was a ball of energy and his more experienced mates, Tom Wood, Courtney Lawes and Luther Burrell, played with no less intent. Northampton had most of the exchanges in the first half but Leicester most of the points.
They led by 10 after a quarter of an hour, courtesy of one of those guess-work penalties at the scrum that should not be allowed to generate points, and a stroke of genius that very much should be. Harry Thacker is a small man as hookers go but he is of the Schalk Brits school: blessed with the hands of the fly-half he once was and pace, astonishing pace.
He was fed the ball on the halfway line with the game going nowhere, ran left, came off his left foot, streaked towards the Northampton try line with Vereniki Goneva in support as two Northampton defenders converged to cut him off. He presented the ball as if to pass, enough to bewitch a Samoan full-back in Ahsee Tuala, and carried on his merry way for the most extraordinary try.
Northampton did not panic, though. Within 10 minutes they were level. After a Stephen Myler penalty, Burrell picked a superb line to set up Harrison in the corner. Then, when Wood charged from a ruck to halfway, they looked ready to cut loose but composure deserted them. Or more specifically Burrell, who forced a pass that was intercepted by Goneva for an easy canter home.
Myler and Freddie Burns exchanged penalties either side of half-time, before the match hung in the balance again. Northampton sent three penalties, two of them very kickable, to the corner. They could not drive Leicester over but, just as the referee had his arm out with a yellow card threatened, Ken Pisi sent Jamie Elliot crashing to within a couple of metres, before the former sent his brother George the final few feet to the line. Myler’s conversion hit the post. The Saints were within two.
Further penalties were exchanged, both for more nothing penalties at the scrum, before Leicester re-established some breathing space with quarter of an hour to go. Leicester had been doing most of the tackling and when Northampton took a turn the hosts were too accommodating. Goneva drove through three to the shadow of the posts and beautifully swift hands from Manu Tuilagi, who had had a quiet match, sent Burns over for a try he converted himself.
It proved enough. Northampton came and came again. Harry Mallinder, the richly promising son of the director of rugby Jim, worked wonders down the left on at least four occasions. JJ Hanrahan kicked another penalty with three minutes to go to set up one last hopeful tilt. But when Northampton were invited to supply the decisive blow they could not locate it. And that, in the later stages of these competitions, is a fatal failing.
