Premiership: Northampton Saints 32-31 Newcastle Falcons - Sleightholme grabs two tries in win

Ollie Sleightholme marked his 50th appearance for Northampton with two tries against Newcastle

Northampton Saints hung on for a one-point win against a resilient Newcastle Falcons at Franklin's Gardens.

Two Tom Penny tries before the break put Falcons 14-13 up at half-time, after Ollie Sleightholme and Sam Matavesi went over early on for Saints.

Tries from Tom Collins, Juarno Augustus and a second from Sleightholme put Saints 32-14 up after 53 minutes.

Newcastle hit back through Mateo Carreras, Jamie Blamire and George Wacokecoke, but it was not enough.

The result leaves Newcastle third from bottom in the competition, one spot and one point behind a Wasps side that have been suspended from the Premiership after announcing they are "likely" to go into administration.

Wasps' plight has quickly followed on from Worcester Warriors' dramatic demise, with the club removed from the league and results expunged after they were suspended and relegated after players and staff had their contracts terminated when the club was wound up.

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Sleightholme marked his 50th Saints appearance with the game's first try, linking up with George Furbank before going over in the fifth minute.

Matavesi added a second for the hosts soon after, and while James Grayson was again unsuccessful with his conversion the fly-half managed to land a penalty midway though the first half to put Saints 13-0 ahead.

Falcons pulled a try back back though Penny after a period of sustained pressure from the visitors, with a second coming from the full-back to put Newcastle ahead after David Ribbans was shown a yellow card after Saints conceded a succession of penalties.

With Ribbans still in the sin-bin, Newcastle also found themselves a man down when Sebastian de Chaves was shown a yellow card a minute after the restart.

Collins's try restored Saints' lead, and it only got worse for the Falcons as Ben Stevenson was then yellow carded, leaving the 13-man Falcons to go further behind when Augustus managed to shrug off the attention of a number of defenders to make it 27-14 before Sleightholme grabbed his second five-pointer.

Once back to full strength, Carreras sensationally weaved his was through Saints' defence to spark Newcastle's revival with less than 20 minutes remaining.

Blamire was next to crash over, then Wacokecoke raced over in the corner as the margin was reduced to just one point with 10 minutes remaining, but they failed to do enough to complete the fightback.

'It became a flip of the coin' - Reaction

Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson:

"It was frustrating that we had so many opportunities to put that game away, but we didn't.

"We let them come back into it and it becomes a flip of a coin, and we'll get turned over at times like we did at Quins and at Sale. We've got to make sure we're better in the last 10 minutes.

"We went in 14-13 down after being dominant in the first half, and we're not efficient enough at converting our pressure into points and we were too easy to score against, conceding way too many points.

"They are things we need to work on during the week and things we acknowledge are not good enough."

Newcastle Falcons head coach Dave Walder:

"I feel a slight frustration both with the inconsistency in the way we played and in terms of the way things were happening on the pitch.

"My frustrations were because we were disappointing for the first 15 or 20 minutes and at the start of the second half, but we got ourselves back in the game.

"We got a couple of points from the game, but it was hugely frustrating there at the end."

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Northampton: Furbank; Collins, Dingwall, Hutchinson, Sleightholme; J Grayson, Mitchell; A. Waller, S Matavesi, Hill; Ribbans, Moon, Coles, Hinkley, Augustus.

Replacements: Smith, E Waller, Petch, Salakaia-Loto, Ludlam, Braley, Proctor, Hendy.

Newcastle: Penny; Radwan, Stevenson, Lucock, Carreras; B Connon, Stuart; Brocklebank, McGuigan, Palframan; Dalton, De Chaves, Robinson, Collett, Lockwood.

Replacements: Blamire, Mulipola, Tampin, Merrick, Pepper, Young, Schoeman, Wacokecoke.

Referee: Jack Makepeace.