Chris Boyd demands more from ‘rusty’ Northampton

Planet Rugby

Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd was not happy with his side’s showing against Gloucester in the Premiership despite their 34-20 bonus-point win.

He saw his charges take advantage of Gloucester’s ill-discipline to score four tries from George Furbank, Nick Auterac, Tom Wood and James Grayson, with the latter adding two penalties and three conversions.

Ollie Thorley, Jordy Reid and Jonny May scored the Cherry and Whites’ tries, with Lloyd Evans kicking a penalty and a conversion in defeat at Franklin’s Gardens.

Patchy and rusty

Boyd said: “Yes it’s great to be back with a noisy crowd and five points in the bag, but we were patchy and rusty.

“It’s not a performance to be proud of as we are capable of far better.

“We need to build the scoreboard in stages but again we failed to do that. We should have gone three, six, 10, 12 17, instead it’s 10-5 at half-time.

“At times we played some pretty good stuff but then again there was some really average play, so we made it hard for ourselves.

“Our set-piece was decent, as was our scrambling defence in the second half and I was pleased that we were able to regroup to score the bonus-point try when we were under the cosh and down to 14 men.

“Furbs (George Furbank) and a couple of backs impressed and Juarno Augustus made a decent contribution when he came on, especially when he won a vital turnover.”

Injury-ravaged Gloucester contributed fully to an entertaining game and were unfortunate to come away with nothing as they were committed for the whole 80 minutes.

Their lack of discipline – losing Jack Clement and Jack Singleton to the sin-bin and the malfunction of their lineout – proved their undoing.

Head coach George Skivington said: “If you give away 12 penalties in the first half, that sucks the energy out of you and realistically you have no chance of winning.

“The lineout was clunky but we didn’t come with an ideal pack as we had a number eight (Ben Morgan) in the second-row. But we trained with that combination all week so I’m not offering any excuses.

“We came very close to picking up two bonus points in the closing stages but Saints were better at closing the game out.

“We have Leicester at home on Friday which will be a very physical test with a lot of kicking and I genuinely don’t have a clue as to who we may have available for that game.”

George Ford lavished with praise after Tigers performance

Meanwhile, Leicester Tigers head coach Steve Borthwick hailed George Ford after the fly-half put in a top class performance in their Premiership win over Exeter Chiefs.

Fellow England international George Martin won the man of the match award but Ford stole the show as he orchestrated a 34-19 victory at Mattioli Woods Welford Road.

Ford was given the summer off by Eddie Jones, missing wins over the USA and Canada to recover from a niggling calf injury, but on the opening day of the new season he was outstanding.

 

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