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England stars can't save Leicester Tigers from Saints humbling

Manu Tuilagi

New Zealand centre Matt Proctor crossed twice on his first Gallagher Premiership appearance as Northampton Saints demolished local rivals Leicester Tigers at Franklin’s Gardens.

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The Saints marched to a 36-13 bonus-point win – a fourth derby win on the spin – as Proctor’s double was added to by Api Ratuniyarawa, Tom Collins and Fraser Dingwall.

The Northampton backs had a field day as the likes of Rory Hutchinson and George Furbank flourished in the heat of the East Midlands derby.

Leicester, who had brought back all of their England World Cup players, could only respond through Guy Thompson’s first-half try and eight points from the boot of George Ford.

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It means the Tigers remain second bottom, while Northampton are back at the Premiership summit with Bristol still to play on Sunday.

The Saints had been hit by a triple blow before kick-off as they lost experienced trio Owen Franks, Courtney Lawes and Dan Biggar to injury.

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

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Ehren Painter, Ratuniyarawa and James Grayson were the players asked to fill the void.

And Northampton soon lost another player as influential full-back Furbank was forced off for a head injury assessment.

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

Both teams failed to make anything stick during the opening 12 minutes, but Leicester were able to go in front thanks to a Ford penalty from in front of the posts.

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Furbank was able to return to the field soon after as Northampton tried to exert some pressure.

And they did just that, using a scrum in the Tigers 22 to eventually allow Cobus Reinach to send Proctor through a non-existent Leicester defence.

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

Tigers were dealt another blow as wing Jonah Holmes was forced off with an injury, but the away side scored soon after as flanker Thompson got the ball down.

Ford kicked to make it 10-7, but the scores were soon level as Grayson landed a penalty earned by Alex Waller’s rampaging run into the Tigers 22.

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

Saints then took the lead once more as fine combination play between Furbank and Hutchinson allowed Proctor to spin and score a second in the corner.

Grayson converted to a huge roar and Northampton were now firmly on top.

They scored again just before the break as Hutchinson released Proctor who ran a lovely line before giving the ball to man of the match Taqele Naiyaravoro for a trademark offload for the onrushing Ratuniyarawa.

Grayson converted again to make it 24-10, but Leicester responded after the restart. Ford landed a penalty after lock Alex Moon had been sin-binned for deliberately slapping the ball out of Leicester hands.

But it did not ruin Northampton’s momentum and after Leicester’s lineout woes continued, Reinach sent a long pass out to Collins, who bagged his team’s bonus-point try.

Leicester were struggling to summon up any sort of response and there was still time for it to get worse as Dingwall, just on for Proctor, finished off another flowing move.

Grayson converted to make it 36-13 and Northampton continued to pile the pressure on until the final whistle, with Leicester left battered and bruised.

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers - Gallagher Premiership - Franklin's Gardens

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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