Northampton ambush Bulls on the road to extend perfect Champions Cup start
The English champions have not been able to win on the road in defence of
this season, but they chose Pretoria, of all places, the most inhospitable of venues, home of the most abrasive of teams, to notch up a first away win. And they do so with a bonus point to complete the opening two matches of their Champions Cup campaign with a maximum haul.
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Quite how they did it defies analysis, other than to say this was a classic ambush. Hardly any ball, hardly any territory but an absolute masterclass of obdurate defence in the face of an onslaught, allied with deadly accuracy when offered a glimpse of a chance. It helped that the Bulls, struggling to rediscover their form of last season, were all fingers and thumbs – very large fingers and thumbs – butchering chance after chance. They smashed Northampton at scrum-time in the first half, Emmanuel Iyogun shown a yellow card just before the break, but could do nothing with it.
Indeed, it was Northampton who snatched a try just after he had gone, turning over a loose Bulls line-out, before Alex Mitchell tapped and went when the Bulls infringed, darting and feeding Juarno Augustus a couple of phases later to send the No8 over for Saints’ second and an outrageous 12-7 lead.
It set the tone for the second half. Tommy Freeman snatched two tries, to complement one for George Hendy in the first half. Marcell Coetzee scored between Northampton’s two tries in the first half, and Cameron Hanekom, the feisty Bulls No8, scored a brace in the second, but the Saints defied the altitude to take full points.