George Hendy Scores Three as Eight-Try Saints Hammer Pretoria Bulls

The young winger scored a hat-trick as the Saints secured maximum points from their first two Investec Champions Cup games with an eight-try hammering of the Bulls.

Sleightholme scored two tries and Pollock scored the fourth try inside an hour as a dominant Northampton side cut loose in the second half.

The visitors were still in the game with the score 14-5 at the interval but a sin-binning to forward Tshakweni in the 53rd minute for a unnecessary trip proved very costly and they failed to register a point in the final forty minutes.

International Smith added 10 points from the tee as Saints moved to the summit of their pool on points difference from defending champions Bordeaux-Bègles with the two teams on 10 points.

The nature of this win, coming after a 35-27 away win at Section Paloise last week, means last season's runners-up Northampton could not have hoped for a more ideal beginning as they look to improve on that in this campaign.

Pretoria's number ten Wolhuter missed an early penalty before Saints opened the scoring when Pollock broke before feeding Sleightholme who demonstrated his speed to sprint away to the line.

But an mistake from the winger allowed the Bulls back into the game as the ball was knocked on in contact, allowing Pretoria winger Jacobs to hack the ball forward and show electric speed of his own to reply after 22 minutes.

Shortly after, Northampton had their second try as fast passing from Alex Mitchell at the base of a ruck and then Smith sent George Hendy over to make it fourteen to five at the half-time whistle.

Northampton were dominant in both ball and field position and were being aided from Bulls fly-half Kade Wolhuter who twice missed touch with penalty kicks to reinvite pressure onto the visitors.

That told after 48 minutes when Fin Smith was again the creator, darting inside to wrong-foot the advancing defence before sending a sweet grubber kick over the line for George Hendy to collect his second and Northampton's third score.

Pretoria forward Alulutho Tshakweni was then shown a yellow card for a tripping offense on Iyogun. The prop was insistent he had been responding to a trip just prior by Iyogun but the incident from the Saints replacement prop was ruled unintentional when looked at by the match officials.

Northampton capitalized of having the numerical advantage to secure the bonus point through Pollock before Alex Coles and Sleightholme crossed as the hosts registered three scores in five frantic minutes.

George Hendy wrapped up his hat-trick with 12 minutes remaining and Josh Kemeny walked over for the eighth and final try of an excellent day for Northampton in the dying moments.

Rerun of Last Season's Final Next for Saints

The leading pair in the group will face off in a rerun of last year's final when the tournament resumes in the new year as Northampton travel to Bordeaux-Bègles. Northampton then round off the group phase with a fixture at home against Scarlets on 18 January.

The Pretoria Bulls, who have one point from their opening two games, welcome Bristol Bears 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)