George Hendy Hat-Trick as Eight-Try Saints Hammer 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 Pretoria.

Ollie Sleightholme crossed twice and Pollock secured 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 fourteen-five at the break but a sin-binning to prop Tshakweni in the 53rd minute for a unnecessary trip proved decisive and they failed to register a point in the final forty minutes.

England fly-half Smith contributed 10 points with the boot as Saints went top of their pool on superior points difference from defending champions Bordeaux with the two teams on 10 points.

The nature of this victory, coming after a 35-27 victory on the road at Pau last week, means last year's losing finalists Saints could not have hoped for a more ideal beginning as they aim to improve on that in this campaign.

Pretoria's number ten Wolhuter failed with an early penalty before Saints took the lead when Henry Pollock broke before feeding Ollie Sleightholme who demonstrated his speed to sprint away to the try line.

But an error from Sleightholme let the Bulls back in as the ball slipped from his grasp in the tackle, allowing Bulls wing Jacobs to kick on and show blistering pace of his own to reply 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 put George Hendy over in the corner to make it fourteen to five at the break.

Northampton were on top in possession and territory and were being aided from the opposition fly-half Kade Wolhuter who failed to find touch with penalty kicks to bring the pressure back on the away side.

That told after 48 minutes when Smith was again the creator, stepping inside to deceive the onrushing defense before delivering a perfectly weighted grubber kick over the line for George Hendy to collect his second try and Northampton's third.

Pretoria forward Tshakweni was then sin-binned for a tripping offense on Iyogun. Tshakweni was adamant he had been responding to a trip momentarily before by Iyogun but the incident from the Northampton substitute was ruled accidental when reviewed by the officials.

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

George Hendy completed his triple with 12 minutes remaining and Josh Kemeny walked over for the eighth and final try of an excellent day for Northampton in the final minute.

Rerun of Last Year's Final Next for Saints

The top two teams in the group meet in a rerun of last year's final when the Investec Champions Cup resumes in the new year as Saints head to Bordeaux-Bègles. Northampton then round off the group phase with a home game against the Scarlets on January 18th.

The Pretoria Bulls, who have one point from two matches, welcome Bristol in their next outing before an away trip 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)