George Hendy Hat-Trick as Eight-Try Northampton Demolish Bulls

The young winger scored a hat-trick as Northampton made it a perfect ten points from their opening two European games with an eight-try thrashing of Pretoria.

Ollie Sleightholme crossed twice and Henry Pollock scored the fourth try inside an hour as a dominant Northampton side ran riot in the second half.

The Bulls were within touching distance with the score fourteen-five at the break but a sin-binning to forward Alulutho Tshakweni in the 53rd minute for a needless trip proved very costly and they failed to register a point in the final forty minutes.

England fly-half Fin Smith contributed 10 points with the boot as Saints went top of Pool Four on points difference from defending champions Bordeaux with the two teams on 10 points.

The nature of this win, following a 35-27 away win at Pau last week, means last year's losing finalists Northampton could not have hoped for a more ideal beginning as they look to go one better in this campaign.

Pretoria's number ten Wolhuter failed with an early penalty before the hosts opened the scoring when Henry Pollock broke before passing to Sleightholme who showed his pace to sprint away to the line.

But an error from Sleightholme let the Bulls back in as the ball was knocked on in the tackle, allowing Pretoria winger Jacobs to hack the ball forward and show electric speed of his own to reply after 22 minutes.

Ten minutes later, Saints had their second try as fast passing from Mitchell at the base of a ruck and then Smith sent Hendy over to make it fourteen to five at the break.

Saints were on top in both ball and field position and were being given a helping hand from the opposition fly-half Kade Wolhuter who twice missed touch with clearing penalties to reinvite pressure onto the away side.

That proved decisive after 48 minutes when Fin Smith was again the architect, stepping inside to wrong-foot the advancing defence before delivering a perfectly weighted grubber kick over the line for Hendy to grab his second and Northampton's third.

Bulls prop Tshakweni was then shown a yellow card for a tripping offense on Emmanuel Iyogun. The prop was insistent he had been responding to a trip momentarily before by Iyogun but the contact from the Saints replacement prop was ruled unintentional when looked at by the match officials.

Saints capitalized of having the extra man to clinch the bonus point through Pollock before Coles and Ollie Sleightholme crossed as the hosts registered three tries in five minutes.

Hendy wrapped up his triple with 12 minutes remaining and Kemeny strolled in for the eighth try of an excellent day for Northampton in the dying moments.

Rematch of Last Season's Final Next for Saints

The top two teams in the pool will face off in a rerun of the previous season's final when the tournament returns in the new year as Saints head to Bordeaux-Bègles. The Saints then conclude the pool stage with a home game against the Scarlets on January 18th.

The Bulls, who have one point from their opening two games, host Bristol next before traveling to face Pau.

Line-ups

Northampton: Furbank; Sleightholme, Hutchinson, Dingwall, Hendy; F Smith, Mitchell; Fischetti, Wright, Davison, Coles, Van der Mescht, Kemeny, Pearson, Pollock

Replacements: R Smith, Iyogun, Kundiona, Munga, Prowse, Graham, James, Thame

Bulls: Williams; Petersen, Gans, Vorster, Jacobs; Wolhuter, Burger; Tshakweni, Van der Merwe, Smith, Wiese, Van Heerden, Coetzee, Ludwig, Louw

Replacements: Else, Sithole, Mchunu, Gumede, Carr, Papier, Johannes, Van Niekerk

Yellow card: Tshakweni (53)

Match Officials

Referee: Hollie Davidson (Sco)

Assistant referees: Rob McDowell (Sco) and Dave Sutherland (Sco)

TMO: Mike Adamson (Sco)