Saints beat Exeter to earn first win of season
Alex Coles (second from right) has now scored 13 tries in all competitions for Northampton Saints
- Published
Gallagher Premiership
Northampton (13) 30
Tries: Coles, Munga, Hutchinson Pens: Smith 2 Cons: Smith 3 DG: Smith
Exeter (7) 24
Tries: Woodburn, Feyi-Waboso 2 Pens: Hodge Cons: Hodge 3
Reigning champions Northampton Saints put their opening-day defeat behind them with a deserved win over Exeter Chiefs at Franklin's Gardens.
Tries from Alex Coles, Chunya Munga, Rory Hutchinson and six kicks from Fin Smith secured the hosts the win.
Olly Woodburn's first-half try and two late on from Immanuel Feyi-Waboso earned a point for the Chiefs, who have started the Premiership season with back-to-back defeats.
Saints' first win of the campaign saw them leapfrog the visitors to seventh in the table, while Exeter dropped one spot to ninth.
Saints started the match much the better side and after nine minutes last weekend's try-scorer Juarno Augstus ploughed through the middle of the pitch to tee up on-rushing second-row Coles to score the opener.
Player of the match Smith added the extras before two penalties meant Saints raced into a 13-point lead before the half-hour mark.
Chiefs fly-half Harvey Skinner then found a yard to dart through the Saints defence and found Woodburn, who had the simplest of tasks to score under the posts.
In the second half, Exeter's stand-out player, Josh Hodge, found his range with the boot wonderfully.
His monster kick from just over halfway clipped the inside of the right upright to reduce the arrears to three points.
The visitors were then dealt a hammer blow when Munga charged down scrum-half Sam Maunder's attempted box kick to crash over the whitewash on his 50th Premiership appearance.
Four minutes later, a pinpoint kick from the impressive George Furbank found Hutchinson on the left wing and he finished expertly to score the try of the match.
Smith, who ended six from six with the boot, then put Saints 20 points clear with a well-taken drop goal after the hour mark.
Feyi-Waboso then scored his first try with 11 minutes remaining after it was adjudged Woodburn had not deliberately knocked the ball on, following a lengthy TMO review which showed a fingertip touch from Saints replacement Tom West before it got to the Chiefs winger.
With four minutes left, Hutchinson was sent to the sin-bin for a high tackle on Woodburn and moments later substitute Tom Cairns did brilliantly to find Feyi-Waboso to score his second and reduce the deficit to just six.
The comeback proved to be too little too late for the Chiefs, however, as the hosts held on to claim a confidence-building victory.
Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson told BBC Radio Northampton:
"Very nervous [ending to the match] and fair play to Exeter for getting back into it.
"We obviously let it slip with a couple of opportunities, defending double sets, which is frustrating.
"I thought our defence was excellent for the most part but we let them in at the end and gave them a sniff.
"There's a lot of sore bodies in there and it was brutal from a physical point of view."
Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Radio Devon:
"We couldn't have talked more about taking something from away games and we have to play in a way that gives us the best opportunity to do that.
"I think we got large parts of that right. We spent a lot of time in the right areas of the field but we're still patchy on our individual error count.
"I think collectively, as a team, we took a step forward today."
Northampton: Furbank (capt); Ramm, Dingwall, Hutchinson, Freeman; F Smith, James; Iyogun, Langdon, Davison, Munga, Coles, Kemeny, Pearson, Augustus.
Replacements: R Smith, West, Green, Scott-Young, Graham, McParland, Thame, Sleightholme.
Exeter: Hodge; Feyi-Waboso, Woodburn, Hawkins, Brown-Bampoe; Skinner, Maunder; Sio (capt), Frost, Painter, Tuima, Tshiunza, Roots, Capstick, Vintcent.
Replacements: Yeandle, Goodrick-Clarke, Street, Dunne, Moloney, Cairns, Haydon-Wood, Rigg.
Referee: Adam Leal