Hendy Scores Three as Eight-Try Northampton Rout Pretoria Bulls

George Hendy scored a hat-trick as Northampton secured a perfect ten points from their first two Investec Champions Cup games with an eight-try thrashing of the Bulls.

Sleightholme crossed twice and Pollock secured the fourth try before the hour mark as a commanding Northampton side cut loose in the latter period.

The Bulls were still in the game with the score fourteen-five at the interval but a sin-binning to prop Tshakweni in the 53rd minute for a needless trip proved decisive and they did not score a point in the second half.

England fly-half Smith added 10 points with the boot as Northampton moved to the summit of Pool Four on superior points difference from defending champions Bordeaux with the two teams on 10 points.

The manner of this victory, following a 35-27 victory on the road at Section Paloise previously, means last year's losing finalists Saints could not have hoped for a more ideal beginning as they look to go one better in this campaign.

Bulls fly-half Kade Wolhuter missed an early shot at goal before the hosts opened the scoring when Pollock made a break before feeding Ollie Sleightholme who demonstrated his speed to race clear to the try line.

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

Ten minutes later, Northampton had their second as fast passing from Alex Mitchell at the ruck base and then Smith put Hendy over in the corner to make it 14-5 at the break.

Northampton were dominant in both ball and field position and were being aided from the opposition fly-half Wolhuter who failed to find touch with clearing penalties to bring the pressure back on the visitors.

That proved decisive after 48 minutes when Smith was again the creator, stepping inside to wrong-foot the advancing defence before delivering a sweet left-footed kick over the line for George Hendy to collect his second try and Saints' third score.

Pretoria forward Alulutho Tshakweni was then sin-binned 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 Northampton substitute was ruled accidental when reviewed by the match officials.

Saints capitalized of having the extra man to secure the try bonus point through Henry Pollock before Alex Coles and Sleightholme scored as the home team notched three tries in five minutes.

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

Rerun of Last Year's Final Next for Saints

The top two teams in the group will face off in a rerun of last year's final when the tournament resumes in January as Northampton travel to Bordeaux-Bègles. Northampton then round off the group phase with a home game against Scarlets on January 18th.

The Bulls, who have one point from their opening two games, host Bristol in their next outing before an away trip 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)