Northampton 23 Scarlets 28:AS PUBLIC auditions go, this was one to forget. Jim Mallinder may yet be destined to become the next England head coach but his players did his cause more harm than good on a night that has probably done terminal damage to the hosts' chances of European knock-out qualification. Though the Saints do not want Mallinder to leave, he will be going nowhere if they keep performing like this.
The Saints’ first Heineken Cup home loss in 13 games was a painful one. Last weekend’s last-gasp defeat to Munster left them little margin for error, and the Scarlets gleefully seized on the opportunity to maintain their superb start to this year’s group. Northampton will now have to beat Castres and the Scarlets away to have a chance of progressing.
Most of the damage was done in the first half, when the Scarlets scored three converted tries. Either Saints were still feeling the effects of that contest against Munster or the mere possibility of losing Mallinder and his assistant Dorian West has hit them seriously hard. Even before Rhys Priestland, who scored 13 points, touched down to secure the bonus point early in the final quarter, they looked strangely distracted.
The unsettling speculation about Mallinder’s future was further compounded when Ben Foden was withdrawn from the side because of sore ribs. It scarcely lifted the mood when a scampering break from scrum-half Gareth Davies after just two minutes led to a kick-and-chase try from Liam Williams.
Priestland’s conversion offered the Scarlets further encouragement, and Saints spent much of the first 40 minutes stuck in their own half. Only in the scrums did Northampton exert any consistent authority, with Soane Tonga’uiha making early inroads.
Even a Lamb penalty proved a mixed blessing when the restart rebounded off Courtney Lawes’s hand straight to Aaron Shingler who duly strolled over from 15 metres. The home fans reckoned the ball had cannoned off Sean Lamont, and their frustration deepened when Priestland kicked a towering touchline conversion to make it 14-3.
Mallinder’s irritation deepened when Jonathan Davies and the replacement Matt Gilbert escaped respective yellow cards for a high tackle on Vasily Artemyev and taking out Lawes in the air. Lamb did land two further penalties but two minutes before the interval Northampton conceded another gift of a score, Foden’s understudy George Pisi dropping a high ball and Davies setting up the rangy Gilbert, who crashed through Chris Ashton’s attempted tackle.
Mallinder’s half-time talk would not have been a softly-spoken one. Either way, it did nothing to subdue the Scarlets, whose forwards produced one startling forward drive that almost yielded a try that would have killed the contest. It proved academic, as Northampton again self-destructed. Lamb’s relatively easy penalty bounced off a post, Ashton dropped an equally simple pass and, in the blink of an eye, Priestland was scoring at the other end courtesy of George North’s fine chase and kick ahead. Tries by Pisi and Wood came too late and will not have consoled Mallinder.
NORTHAMPTON: Pisi; Ashton, Clarke, Downey, Artemyev; Lamb, Dickson; Tonga’uiha, Hartley, Mujati; Lawes, Sorenson; Clark, Wood, Wilson. Replacements: Dowson for Clark (55 mins), Manoa for Soreson, Roberts for Dickson (both 65 mins), Armstrong for Pisi, Waller for Tonga’uiha, Doran-Jones for Mujati (all 72 mins)
SCARLETS: L Williams; North, S Williams, J Davies, S Lamont; Priestland, Davies; I Thomas, Rees, R Thomas, Timani, Welch, Shingler, Edwards, Morgan. Replacements: Gilbert for Shingler (31 mins), S Jones for Priestland, Reed for Timani (both 65 mins), John for I Thomas (66 mins).
Referee: P Fitzgibbon (Ireland).
