13,491 people at Franklin’s Gardens and millions more watching on BT Sport witnessed the most dramatic and enthralling match of the season on Friday evening, it was a Semi Final of the highest calibre and it resulted in the Saints reaching their second successive Aviva Premiership Final.
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| Image Claire Jones Red Hat Photography |
Saints went into the match billed as the favourites, they were in form and they were at home, these are two factors that are usually match winning ones, however during the first forty minutes neither looked to be useful to Mallinder’s men as the Tigers’ bulldozed to a 17-6 lead. Tigers were clinical and when they had the opportunity to put points on the board they did so courtesy of two tries and a penalty. Initially the home side just weren’t quite firing on all four cylinders... it wasn’t due to a lack of desire, they were simply stifled by the intensity of the Tigers and small errors cost them many points scoring opportunities. As expected the physicality of the match was at the top end of the bone crunching scale and Dickinson’s first hit on Mulipola really did set the tone early on in the game. Manu's try was well worked however it was Ben Young’s that provided us with the best try scoring celebration that we have seen ever from Richard Cockerill, the double fist pumping was quite something to behold and he was equally animated in the tiny away dressing room at half time.
After the break Saints meant business, they knew that they needed to score first
in order to keep themselves in the match and that they needed improve on their precision
if they were to have any chance of getting back into the game. As with all East Midlands
Derbies the players' emotions began to soar and on 50 minutes one individual's boiled over when Ma'afu threw a punch off the ball at Tom Youngs. The result
was a yellow card for Youngs for instigating the incident however more
significantly it was a red card for Ma'afu and the mountain that the home side
had to climb grew by about 20 feet! In the minutes that followed the card the
Saints did exactly what Leicester had done during the first half when they had a man in the bin, they upped their game and played fearlessly. Lee Dickson raised the tempo of the match and helped to step change home side's game and they clawed right back into it the Welsh wonder that is George North crossed the line. 66 minutes gone... Northampton Saints 16 Leicester Tigers 17. Leicester scored next, a coolly slotted penalty from young Owen Williams, however the momentum was still with Mallinder's men and with less then ten minutes remaining they had the bit between their teeth and the skill to match it. After what seemed like twenty phases of attacking play, I'm sure it was more like 9 in real like but stick with me here, Tom Wood
powered his way across the line and stole the lead. Agonisingly for Saints Myler’s
conversion hit the posts and it gave Tigers one final chance if they re-gained the restart to grasp back the match that they had thought for so was theirs. For Cockers' men it was not to be, in the dying seconds Saints gained the restart, wound the down the clock and then rejoiced as JP Doyle's final whistle sounded and Franklin’s Gardens erupted.
All in all it was a simply outstanding
game of rugby, so much occurred that if I missed your favourite part I do apologise, but I hope that I have been able to capture the essence of what as a match that made me proud to be a rugby fan. It was a game that touched all of our hearts due the raw emotion shown by all of the players, coaches and fans and the twists and turns throughout captivated us from minute one to minute eighty. Whilst Leicester head home empty handed, Jim Mallinder’s men march on to
Twickenham, the phrase this driving them this year is “It is our time” and
after a win like that over their biggest rivals and the reigning Aviva Premiership
Champions you can see why they believe it.
Northampton Saints Photos © Claire Jones RedHatPhoto.com all proceeds supporting Restart, the rugby players' charity. See the full album HERE
