This, rugby’s fiercest derby, has produced some crackling encounters of high drama and intensity. This one was little more than an exhibition. Not that it was any less enjoyable if you are a Saint. They are playing the rugby of the gods just now and this latest bonus-point win, sparked by two tries from new boy Matt Proctor, takes them back to the top of the table.
“Today was one of our better performances,” said Chris Boyd, the latest Kiwi coach to reveal the game’s secrets to us up here. “To get the points and play well, at home, East Midlands derby – the supporters go home happy, hopefully.”
What a joy they are to watch these days, bursting with star performers up front and behind, but how Leicester spirited them on their way. The Tigers are sliding deeper and deeper into the sort of mire Northampton were wading through until quite recently.
“The players are incredibly disappointed,” said Geordan Murphy, “because they were blown away.”
Leicester were shambolic at times. Could this, England’s biggest club, really be on the brink of relegation? There is much to play out before that proclamation can be made, but while Leicester look to the punishment meted out to Saracens for succour, Northampton make hay in the latter’s absence from the front-runners.
Less than two years ago, this had become quite the most depressing place, the evident misery off the field leaching on to it. What a difference a regime change can make. After a season of Boyd, the Saints are well on the way to becoming the darlings of English rugby, now that Saracens are not quite so much flavour of the era. While the latter work their way back from the end of the table with which the Saints had become more familiar of late, Northampton are making the most of the opportunity at the other.
The rugby is fabulous to watch, the mood so clearly transformed. Their two wingers, the monster and the mite, Taqele Naiyaravoro and Tom Collins, wreak havoc in their wonderfully different ways, now joined by George Furbank at full-back, who can do no wrong.
Dan Biggar dropped out on the morning (as did Courtney Lawes and Owen Franks, international veterans all). No problem, James Grayson, son of Paul, slipped into place without a misstep. New to the party is the one-cap All Black, Proctor. He loved it here outside Rory Hutchinson – who wouldn’t? – and had his two tries within the first half-hour.
The first was bizarrely simple, straight from a scrum. Maybe play like this just makes defences appear hapless, but Leicester’s looked just that. Less so with the next two, which were more or less unplayable expositions of vibrant rugby.
Proctor scored his second in the left corner after a sweeping move down the right, featuring those two dynamic wingers and developed by Hutchinson and Furbank. Then Hutchinson and Proctor combined in their own 22, after a stolen ball from an attacking Tigers lineout, to put the latter away before Naiyaravoro sent Api Ratuniyarawa, his only slightly less massive and athletic fellow Fijian, galloping clear for a 24-10 lead at the break.
Leicester were shell-shocked. It is hardly as if they are not peopled by players of the highest rank, but they are clearly suffering just the same malaise as Northampton did in the bad old days. Saracens’ troubles are also providing them with an opportunity, theirs the rather more visceral one of survival. Twenty-two points is the size of their cushion at the bottom. At this rate it will be gone by February.
They owed their best bits to the good old-fashioned lineout and drive, a series of which netted them a try for Guy Thompson in the first half. A rare break-out early in the second then coaxed Alex Moon into a yellow-card offence. Ford pulled back three points, but Northampton had the bonus point five minutes later.
A horrific mix-up by Leicester at a lineout on their own five-metre line was exploited by Tom Wood. Cobus Reinach’s long pass put Collins in for a stroll to the corner. In the last 10 minutes, Fraser Dingwall scored Northampton’s third try.
If Leicester want encouragement they need look no further than Northampton’s transformation which gives hope for us all.
