Premiership: Northampton 40-19 Bath - Saints ease to bonus-point win over bottom side

Northampton number eight Juarno Augustus got both of his two tries before the break

Northampton Saints climbed to third in the Premiership as they handed bottom side Bath their ninth straight defeat.

Saints earned their bonus point before the break with two tries from Juarno Augustus and one each Rory Hutchinson and Tommy Freeman, all converted by Wales stand-off Dan Biggar.

Bath kept in touch with scores for Sam Underhill, Lewis Boyce and Will Stuart, two converted by Tom de Glanville.

But home winger Courtnall Skosan's two second-half tries closed the door.

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Bath's latest defeat came at a further cost as, after losing lock Josh McNally, who pulled out feeling ill in the warm-up, they then lost both half-backs Ben Spencer and Danny Cipriani to first-half injuries. And McNally's replacement Mike Williams was sin-binned for a high tackle on Biggar.

Saints got off to a great start when Freeman finished off a lovely move with their first attack to send Hutchinson over.

England full-back contender Freeman then went over himself after 12 minutes before Bath responded with a string of penalties that allowed them to kick to the corner, where Underhill went over from a line-out drive.

Courtnall Skosan, whose two tries came in the second half, is Northampton's top try-scorer this season with seven

Fraser Dingwall then offloaded for Augustus to score his first Saints try - and his second did not take long to follow when Bath were down to 14 men.

Boyce got a try back before half-time and then, after Sam Matavesi's early second-half sin-binning, Stuart got another, allowing De Glanville's conversion to cut the gap to nine points.

But two more tries came from Skosan, the second of them from a cross-field kick by George Furbank, who added the conversion.

Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd:

"I'm happy with the five points. But it was a bit like the old box of chocolates. Some of it was good and some of it was atrocious. There was the odd sour lolly in there.

"The whole game was frustrating. The crowd were getting frustrated with how slow the set-pieces were to get formed. I don't think Bath were in any particular hurry to play the game.

"There's plenty of work to do. If people are going to score tries against you, you want them to have to earn them.

"We gave them let-outs through the middle third into our defensive area and it was too easy for them to score. It's an area of our game that we need to work on."

Bath boss Stuart Hooper:

"I've never known anything like it - there's bump after bump. We lost Josh McNally in the warm-up and then lost our nine and 10 in the first half.

"It's too early to tell how they all are and we'll wait to see how they are through the week. We had a huge list of people who weren't available to play.

"Northampton got a couple of early tries, it was a couple of poor moments from us and it put us on the back foot. But what I won't question is the fight and determination of the guys.

"I can't speak highly enough of players like Tom de Glanville, Max Ojomoh and Sam Underhill."

Northampton: Furbank; Freeman, Dingwall, Hutchinson, Skosan; Biggar, Mitchell; Waller, Matavesi, Painter, Ribbans, Moon, Wilkins, Ludlam (capt), Augustus.

Replacements: Fish, Auterac, Hill, Ratuniyarawa, Coles, James, Litchfield, Sleightholme.

Sin-bin: Matavesi (48).

Bath: De Glanville; Rokoduguni, Butt, Ojomoh, Muir; Cipriani, Spencer; Boyce, Dunn, Stuart, Williams, Ewels (capt), Ellis, Underhill, Bayliss.

Replacements: Du Toit, Vaughan, Rae, Merigan, De Carpentier, Richards, Fox, Hamer-Webb.

Sin-bin: Williams (28).

Referee: Karl Dickson.

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