Saints brace: James Wilson
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Northampton moved provisionally top of the Premiership table with a 24-6 win over Wasps at Franklin's Gardens on Friday.
The Saints got off to a flying start when Ken Pisi launched a stunning counter-attack in response to an aimless long kick after just five minutes and the Samoan international gave it to full-back James Wilson to score in the right-hand corner.
And the Kiwi Wilson won a penalty for Stephen Myler to convert moments later after he chased his own kick and forced Wasps scrum-half Joe Simpson to hold on in the tackle.
Nicky Robinson did get the visitors back into the match with a couple of successful penalties but Myler cancelled them out with two of his own to make the score 14-6 at the break and Wasps' task was made even harder when Tim Payne was sent to the sin bin right on the stroke of half-time.
The Londoners survived the opening ten minutes of the second period intact until they were restored to their full complement but it wasn't long before they fell further behind as the New Zealander Wilson grabbed his second try of the game.
A superb bulldozing run and offload from former Leeds and Sale centre Luther Burrell gave Wilson the opportunity and the 29-year-old stretched his arm out just far enough to touch the ball down on the try-line.
Myler added the conversion and a late penalty to seal the win as the visitors struggled to even look like mounting any kind of comeback and Northampton move to the top of the table, while Wasps' struggles continue.
The scorers:
For Northampton:
Tries: Wilson 2
Con: Myler
Pens: Myler 4
For Wasps:
Pens: Robinson 2
Northampton: 15 James Wilson, 14 Ken Pisi, 13 Dom Waldouck, 12 Luther Burrell, 11 Vasily Artemyev, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson, 8 Rhys Oakley, 7 Tom Wood, 6 Courtney Lawes, 5 Christian Day, 4 Samu Manoa, 3 Paul Doran Jones, 2 Dylan Hartley (capt), 1 Soane Tonga'uiha.
Replacements: 16 Mike Haywood, 17 Alex Waller, 18 Brian Mujati, 19 Mark Sorenson, 20 Phil Dowson, 21 Martin Roberts, 22 Ryan Lamb, 23 Tom May.
Wasps: 15 Tommy Bell, 14 Christian Wade, 13 Andrea Masi, 12 Chris Bell, 11 James Bailey, 10 Nick Robinson, 9 Joe Simpson, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 James Haskell, 6 Joe Launchbury, 4 Tom Palmer, 4 Marco Wentzel (c), 3 Zak Taulafo, 2 Tom Lindsay, 1 Tim Payne.
Replacements: 16 T Rhys Thomas, 17 Simon McIntyre, 18 Fabio Staibano, 19 Sam Jones, 20 James Cannon, 21 Charlie Davies, 22 Lee Thomas, 23 Elliot Daly.
Referee: David Pearson
Comments
Jediboy says...
Yes he was playing 6. He's good there but often plays 2nd row.
Posted 14:56 01st October 2012
heart_of_oak says...
Do my eyes deceive me and was Courtney playing at 6 and not in the 2nd row ? This could be interesting. I've often thought he could be very effective as a number 8 but he'd be a great 6 as well.
Posted 12:07 01st October 2012
Jediboy says...
Good win by the Saints but like melldave says, bonus point was left on the field, which is really disappointing. A few golden opportunities were wasted and that could hit us hard at the end of the season. Need to be more clinical and take the opportunities. But overall an impressive performance.
Great to see Lawes back. He put in some great hits. Manoa was good again and James Wilson looks like a great buy.
Posted 15:49 29th September 2012
melkdave says...
A very profesional preformance by Saints ,but id like them to be just a little more ruthless .They had total dominace at the end ,but left a bonus point on the feild imo.Wasps played well 1st half ,and at times looked threatening,but i wonder ,just how much the loss of S.Jones just before the match hurt them .Never the less in takes nothing away from the Saints performance.
Posted 07:57 29th September 2012
NHSaints says...
Yeeeeeeeeh...trick to beating wasps is to starve them of possesion/good ball which is all too easy when you have a decent pack (quote Gloucester, Quinns)
Posted 07:54 29th September 2012