Hendy Hat-Trick as Eight-Try Saints Rout Pretoria Bulls

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

Sleightholme crossed twice and Henry Pollock secured the bonus point try inside an hour as a dominant Saints team ran riot in the second half.

The Bulls 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 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 from the tee as Saints went top of their pool on points difference from defending champions Bordeaux with both sides on 10 points.

The nature of this win, following a 35-27 away win at Section Paloise previously, means last season's runners-up Northampton could not have asked for a more ideal beginning as they aim to go one better in this campaign.

Pretoria's number ten Kade Wolhuter missed an early penalty before Saints opened the scoring when Pollock broke before feeding Ollie Sleightholme who showed his pace to sprint away to the try line.

But an mistake from Sleightholme let the Bulls back in as the ball slipped from his grasp in the tackle, allowing Pretoria winger Stravino Jacobs to hack the ball forward and show blistering pace of his own to score after 22 minutes.

Ten minutes later, Northampton had their second try as fast passing from Alex Mitchell at the ruck base and then Fin Smith sent George Hendy over in the corner to make it 14-5 at the half-time whistle.

Northampton were on top in possession and territory and were being aided from the opposition fly-half Wolhuter who failed to find touch with clearing penalties to reinvite pressure onto the visitors.

That told after 48 minutes when Smith was again the architect, stepping inside to wrong-foot the onrushing defense before delivering a sweet left-footed kick over the line for Hendy to collect his second and Northampton's third score.

Bulls prop Alulutho Tshakweni was then shown a yellow card for a trip on Iyogun. Tshakweni was adamant he had been responding to a trip momentarily before by Iyogun but the contact from the Northampton substitute was ruled accidental when reviewed by the officials.

Northampton seized the opportunity of having the numerical advantage to clinch the try bonus point through Pollock before Coles and Sleightholme scored as the home team notched three scores in five frantic minutes.

George Hendy wrapped up his triple with 12 minutes remaining and Josh Kemeny walked over for the eighth try of an excellent afternoon for Saints in the dying moments.

Rerun of Last Year's Final Next for Saints

The top two teams in the pool meet in a rematch of the previous season's final when the Investec Champions Cup returns in January as Saints head to Bordeaux-Bègles. Northampton then round off the group phase with a fixture at home against Scarlets on 18 January.

The Bulls, who have one point from their opening two games, welcome Bristol Bears in their next outing before traveling to 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)