Saints crush Leeds at Franklin’s Gardens

Northampton Saints dominated their Premiership clash with Leeds Carnegie on Saturday, beating the newly promoted outfit 30-10 at Franklin’s Gardens.

The visitors took the early lead after Ceiron Thomas slotted a penalty, but Saints hit back quickly to take the lead through Shane Geraghty’s unconverted try.

Northampton were finding some rhythm on attack and scored their second try of the match, but this time Jon Clarke’s five-pointer was successfully converted by Geraghty.

The Saints showed no mercy on their opponents and took control of the match before the break, breaking the fragile Leeds defence twice with Clarke crashing over for his second try and Chris Ashton contributing his first to lift the score to 24-3.

However, Carnegie were not lying down after conceding a fourth try and hit back through Thomas who converted his own try to close the gap to 14 points at the break.

The second half started slowly as both defences stood firm before Geraghty kicked his first penalty of the clash in the 57th minute to take the lead past two converted tries.

A Bruce Reihana penalty opened up the lead to 20 points and with only 13 minutes left effectively sealed the win for the hosts.

Final Score Northampton Saints 30 Leeds 10

Scorers

Northampton Saints
Tries: Shane Geraghty, Jon Clarke (2), Chris Ashton
Penalties: Shane Geraghty, Bruce Reihana
Conversions: Shane Geraghty (2)

Leeds
Tries: Ceiron Thomas
Penalties: Ceiron Thomas
Conv: Ceiron Thomas

Teams

Northampton Saints : Foden Ashton Clarke Mayor Reihana Geraghty Dickson Tonga’uiha Sharman Bonorino Lawes Kruger Dowson Gray Wilson

Replacements: Cairns Dreyer Mujati Fernandez-Lobbe Best Dickens Everitt Ansbro

Leeds : Goodridge Welding Hepworth Paul Armstrong Thomas Gomarsall Hardy Nilsen Gomez Lund Pendlebury Denton Fourie Oakley

Replacements: Ma’asi Moreno McGee Clark To’oala Mathie Burrell Wackett