Northampton v Sale: Five takeaways as ‘Mr Extravagant’ feasts on ‘toothless’ Sharks and ‘hip-shaking’ flyer puts his hand up for England
Henry Pollock and, inset, George Hendy, were pivotal in Northampton's PREM win over Sale
Following a 47-21 triumph for Northampton over Sale in the Gallagher Premiership, here’s our five takeaways from Saturday’s game at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens.
The top line
Phil Dowson’s seven-try Saints inflicted a huge win over Alex Sanderson’s out-of-sorts Sale to put their recent heavy league loss at Bristol behind them.
Santa Claus delivered the match ball to the cacophony of fireworks and Northampton quickly exploded out of the traps, coming within a Henry Pollock knock-on of having the four-try bonus point secured as early as the 19th minute.
The toothless, George Ford-less Sharks, who lost head coach Marco Bortolami in midweek after just six months at the Manchester club, had no answer to the early 19-point Saints onslaught which featured tries from Pollock on five minutes, George Hendy on 12 and Toby Thame on 16.
A fourth would have followed but for a TMO review to scrub out the score finished by Alex Coles, and Sale latched on to this lifeline to cut the margin to 12 points through a converted 24th-minute Tom O’Flaherty try.
An ongoing issue for Sale was the lack of quality in Raffi Quirke’s box-kicking and this again proved costly on 33 minutes when trying to clear their lines.
This latest error ended with Josh Kemeny producing some fantastic side-stepping to leave multiple visiting defenders grasping air on his way to the line to secure the bonus point with the converted that left Saints 26-78 clear at the break.
Sale’s half-time tactical tweak was the introduction of sub prop James Harper, but it didn’t matter as the ground they had to make up widened seven minutes after the restart with Hendy’s lovely second score.
O’Flaherty bit back for Sharks, intercepting a Hendy pass for a 54th-minute converted try, and another converted try followed for Aaron Reed just four minutes later after Saints copped a yellow card for a Thame high tackle.
Suddenly, it looked game on with the gap shaved to 33-21, but the Saints came sweeping back down the pitch for George Furbank to touch down on 61 minutes for the converted try that took it to 40-21.
Tom Pearson then burst in from the 22 to wrap up the try-scoring three minutes from the finish, rubber-stamping his team’s fifth win in seven league games, a record that starkly compares to Sale’s fifth loss in seven.
Hendy for England?
Is it time for Steve Borthwick’s England to take a genuine look at versatile Saints’ flyer Hendy?
Player of the match off the bench when catapulting his club to Premiership final glory in 2024, his box of tricks repertoire has since greatly expanded, and he was poison to the Sharks in Saturday’s first half.
Fresh from four tries on two Investec Champions Cup outings, including a hat-trick versus the Bulls, he continued to be full of running here. His burst was integral to the Saints’ opener, and he then audaciously ran in their second when skittling the defence.
The 23-year-old was involved with England A in their February win over Ireland A. But even though he is battling for international recognition at a time of immense riches for Borthwick, the consistency of his hip-shaking performances – regardless of whether it is the number 15, 14 or 11 on his back – is undeniable.
Just ask the wounded Sale, who copped two of his tries here, especially the delicious second where he left O’Flaherty for dead with his step.
Yes, Hendy isn’t the complete article in defence – look at his rash pass to Furbank that was intercepted at the cost of a try when he should have been kicking clear from his 22. However, the positives of 56-minute display far outweighed that negative.
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Mr Extravagant
We came looking to savour the direct head-to-head that was Pollock selected as No.8 up against his England teammate Tom Curry, but it was a non-event.
Mr Extravagant needed only a couple of minutes to first play to his adoring gallery, running in the game’s opening try and gleefully saluting the sold-out Franklin’s Gardens crowd.
From there, there were a couple of lung-bursting chases, a super tip-on pass in the move for the Saints’ third try, and then a subtle knock-on that he very nearly got away before TMO intervened to rule out the Coles score.
When it came to the carry, Pollock was in a different league compared to the less involved Curry.
Carrying, of course, has rarely been Curry’s thing but unless you double-checked his CV, you’d never have known he was the long-serving England back-rower who has been earning his stripes for quite some time up against a Test-level rookie.
Pollock exited 16 minutes into the second half to cheers, with Curry battling on for scraps for just a few minutes more before he too was called ashore.
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Under-pressure Quirke
Another match-up that jumped off the pre-match page was the scrum-half battle between Saints’ Alex Mitchell and Sale’s Quirke. It’s incredible to think it is now four years since Quirke delivered that stunning try for England against the Springboks at Twickenham.
The 24-year-old’s career has been terrorised by injury, and his battle for selection at his club – never mind Test level – was evident in how this was just his second Premiership start this term, as he has been behind Gus Warr in the selection.
An impressive contribution as a starter in last weekend’s Champions Cup win at Clermont meant he retained the No.9 jersey here, but there was a chasm in the quality of what he delivered here compared to Mitchell, who is living his best life as Borthwick’s England No.9.
Quirke repeatedly got his under-pressure team in trouble with his inadequate first-half box kicking, a weakness that contrasted with how the more composed Mitchell, whose calmness in tricky situations shone true.
Look at how he improvised when tidying up a filthy ball to change angles and provide a canny assist for the supporting Hendy to score in the first half. Less than six minutes were remaining when he was called ashore with his team 40-21 up and in control.
By then, Quirke has long departed. He did show a glimpse of his footwork, someone eluding a pile of players in the middle of the pitch to race to the 22 early in the second half, but nothing came of that break and it summed up his afternoon compared to the impactful Mitchell.
Back from the ban
Rookie Italian winger Edoardo Todaro must have been nervous coming back into the Northampton side, having been red-carded in his last appearance and banned for two matches.
Before that sending off at Bristol, the 19-year-old had been making waves at Saints, scoring four tries in six appearances and going on to make a Test debut for Italy in November.
It was an aerial tackle against Sam Worsley that was his undoing at Ashton Gate, but there was no repeat of that miscalculation here. When it came for him to make a defensive impression against Sale, he didn’t shirk making a good tackle down his wing.
It didn’t put a stop to the Sharks, who ended up scoring in the other corner when the 23rd-minute move carried on, but his intervention showed that the youngster’s confidence hadn’t been dented by what happened a few weeks ago. This response was good to see.
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