Belleau penalty helps Northampton repel Gloucester’s thrilli...

For the second game in a row, Northampton tore their opponents to shreds in the first half only to capitulate in the second. Last week they blew a 33-7 lead to draw with Exeter. This time they responded, claiming a nervy 37-35 win over a resurgent Gloucester, narrowly denying them what would have been the largest ever comeback win in English domestic rugby.

“It was a carbon copy, almost,” Phil Dowson, Northampton’s director of rugby, said with a mix of relief and frustration. “We lost momentum and discipline. We were poor for large periods of time. The same thing is happening.”

The idea of a contest was a fantasy midway through a game that would have required binoculars to be viewed from the southern end of the ground, where only 13 of the 72 points were scored. If Gloucester were poor in the opening exchanges, conceding four tries in 35 minutes, they were magnificent thereafter, dotting down five times.

The home side had the lead with only eight minutes to go when the prop Afolabi Fasogbon scored with a splash that would have made Chris Ashton proud. But the home fans’ joy was ripped away from them when the fly-half Ross Byrne was harshly penalised and sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on. “Rough,” is how Gloucester’s director of rugby, George Skivington, termed the decisive decision. Anthony Belleau’s penalty under pressure from the left tram proved the difference.

Everyone in attendance got their money’s worth, though those with trypophobia might have benefited from a trigger warning at the start. Gloucester’s defence was filled with holes; through midfield, around the fringe and out in the wide channels. All Northampton had to do was run straight off first-phase play.

Gloucester C Atkinson; Loader (Edwards-Giraud 70), Joseph, S Atkinson, Thorley; Byrne, Williams; Knight (McArthur 63), Blake (Innard 49), Fasogbon, Thomas, Jordan (Alemanno 51, Jordan 59), Basham (Taylor 56), Venter, Mann (Bokenham 54). Tries Jordan 2, Joseph, Venter, Fasogbon. Cons Byrne 5. Sin-bin Byrne 72

Northampton Hendy; Todaro, Litchfield, Hutchinson, Martin; Belleau, McParland (Weimann 67; Iyogun (Fischetti 49), Walker (Smith 55), Millar Mills (Kundiona 16), Coles, Van der Mescht (Lockett 47), Scott-Young, Pearson (Iyogun 60), Chick. Tries Pearson, Litchfield, McParland, Hendy. Cons Belleau 4. Pens Belleau 3.

Referee Adam Leal.

That’s exactly what Tom Litchfield did on five minutes to get his team going. He wouldn’t score but he provided momentum for Tom Pearson to rumble over from close range. Five minutes later Litchfield had a five-pointer of his own when he gathered a short pass off Rory Hutchinson’s shoulder to slide under the poles.

“I thought we would be a little more connected,” Skivington said, citing the arrival of 13 new signings as a reason for this disharmony. “We’ve learned things about the new lads. It’s hard not to be disappointed but the second half should give the lads confidence with what we can do.”

Another quick double strike from Northampton after the half-hour seemed to put the game to bed. A scrum 45 metres out did not carry any obvious threat but Hutchinson exploded through a gap from first receiver and then fed the supporting Archie McParland on his inside. The bonus point was secured when George Hendy found an edge down the left with a schoolboy show-and-go. He was tackled short of the line but regained his feet to dot down.

At 31-0 some supporters were making an early dash for the bar but those who stayed got to see Cam Jordan burrow over from close range. When the try was awarded after a second look, an ironic cheer rippled around the ground.

They were roaring just after the break when Will Joseph gathered the ball in the left tram around halfway. He stepped infield off his left leg before sending McParland with a dummy. From there he motored away from the chasing Saints to reanimate a crowd whose belief ramped up when first Hendy and then Pearson were shown a yellow card for straying offside in the red zone. After sustained pressure against 13 men, James Venter scored a converted try that closed the gap to 13.

The Exeter director of rugby, Rob Baxter, said he was enjoying looking at the early Prem table after their 38-15 win over Newcastle with the Chiefs in second place, comparing favourably with their disastrous start to last season. It was round nine before Exeter won a league match last season and Baxter said: "Eight points from two games and we are in the top four, and in the first block of five games last season we didn't win a game, and we were bubbling away towards the bottom.

"It shows how quickly those extra points can change the feeling of things and we are in a position now where we know we have got something to genuinely fight for over these next three weeks, as we could easily, with some hard work and positive performances, be in and around that top four after the opening block, and that would be a fantastic place for us to be in after five games, when you consider where we were at this stage last year."

Owen Farrell made a triumphant return to the StoneX Stadium but it was the rampaging Tom Willis who starred in Saracens' 50-17 victory over Bristol. Farrell made his first appearance at the north London ground for 504 days having returned from a season-long spell at Racing 92 during the summer and he finished with a 13-point haul. Saracens plundered seven tries with the wing Jack Bracken pouncing twice and on a day when most elements of their game fired beautifully, Willis emerged as the standout performer.

In another blow to the Bears, the wing Louis Rees-Zammit had to be helped off in the second half because of injury. The centre Joe Jenkins had already departed with a knock. Pat Lam said later that the Bears are being forced to recruit additional players to deal with the injury crisis. Tom Jordan was also unable to finish the match for Bristol, who on the opening weekend lost AJ MacGinty, Harry Randall and Gabriel Ibitoye to injuries that have resulted in surgery.

"The recruitment team will be looking around for some extra players," Lam said. "But it's finding the right players, people in contract, so that's always a tricky one at this time of the year. There are players who are dead keen but then getting released is the other side of it." PA Media

Now it was one-way traffic. Gloucester’s lineout and scrum gained the ascendancy and the Cherry and Whites were camped in Northampton’s 22. Jordan had a double with another stiff carry on the hour before Gloucester took the lead with a try to make all front-rowers proud. Skivington said he would have a word with Fasogbon about cosplaying as England rugby’s all-time leading try scorer, but even he had a smile on his face as he recounted the prop’s swan dive.

Once Gloucester had their noses in front they never looked like losing control as their astonishing Lazarus act was close to completion. But it was not to be. Belleau’s late penalty came like a dagger in the night and Northampton kept possession until the final whistle. “We wrestled momentum back,” Dowson added, though he admitted that it felt as if it had permanently slipped away. A remarkable slugfest ended with both teams providing the other an appropriate guard of honour.