New plonk in old bottles. Two of the leading clubs in France and England made more impact on each other than the European Rugby Champions Cup and a stop-stop game that was two hours from start to finish ended with two tries that took the Premiership leaders from the brink of a draw to the loss of a bonus point that they may come to curse.
Phil Dowson’s try wide on the right four minutes from time left Stephen Myler with the conversion to tie the scores at 13-13, but the fly-half, normally so accurate, was wide and the Saints paid for the miss at the very end when Marc Andreu charged down Ben Foden’s hurried clearance to condemn Northampton to another defeat in France. At least it made a change from Castres, but with Treviso and an in-form but inexperienced Ospreys also in the pool, the defeat looked more irritating than costly.
A bonus point would have been as much as Northampton merited, even if Racing looked like a team from various parts that had just been thrown together: the intent to play was there and so was the energy, but there was no instinctive understanding and they committed basic errors. They struggled to comprehend the interpretations of the referee, George Clancy, at the scrum, but they got away with slowing down the ball in contact and the Saints let frustration cost them position.
Northampton suffered more from the stop-stop nature of a match that at times was like American football, with moves tending to revolve around one play, but there was a point in the second half when they looked to have seized control. The Racing prop Julien Brugnaut was in the sin-bin for scrummaging at an angle and after the Saints immediately raised the pace of the match, the centre George Pisi split the defence and had a free run to the line from 40 metres 55 minutes in.
Northampton were about to go 13-10 up but the try turned into a what-happened-next moment. Pisi felt his left hamstring go and threw down the ball in pain. All the other players stopped for an incident in nobody’s play sheet and rarely will Racing have been more relieved to be awarded a scrum. It was a momentum shift in the game and, though Dowson’s try rewarded the one time the Saints passed the ball with alacrity, they lacked their usual speed of thought, not helped by the clumsy nature of the first try they conceded.
Jonathan Sexton rolled a kick into touch five minutes from the Saints’ line six minutes in, Dylan Hartley’s throw to the front was read by the former Northampton lock Juandré Kruger and two phases later, the centre Alexandre Dumoulin came from deep to take Luther Burrell, Tom Wood and Ben Foden over the line with him.
Racing had spent part of the warm-up having full-on scrums and the set piece came to blight the match, too often an excuse for a free-kick or a penalty and the home side lost both their looseheads to the sin-bin, with the replacement Eddy Ben Arous spending the final seven minutes on the sidelines. The home side were able to dictate the pace of the game and the Saints conceded costly penalties policing the breakdown themselves, Salesi Ma’afu and Wood most notably.
Racing led 10-3 at the interval, Myler and Sexton, making his first appearance for six weeks after injury, exchanging penalties. Andreu should have made more of an opportunity created by Sexton but lacked the pace to get past Kahn Fotuali’i and Northampton’s best move of the opening half ended when Dumoulin tracked Ken Pisi’s inside run and Courtney Lawes then knocked on as his side dithered over what to do at a ruck.
The early promise faded with the light of a warm day. Racing lost their captain, François van der Merwe, and three points, when his high tackle on Lawes was punished by Myler’s boot. Play became messy and disjointed, but Brugnaut’s yellow card gave Northampton the opportunity to increase the tempo. “If George’s hamstring had not gone, his try would have changed the game,” said the Saints’ director of rugby, Jim Mallinder, “and not to get a bonus point is hard to take.”
Racing tested Foden with high kicks throughout and when he dropped one with 13 minutes to go, George North, who had rarely been seen until then with the home side keeping the ball away from him, picked up in an offside position.
After Myler had failed to convert Dowson’s try, they ran the ball from their own line in the final minute and when Foden was forced to make a hurried clearance, Andreu left the large contingent of travelling supporters silent for the first time on the night.
