Despite a late rally from the Premiership leaders, the hosts had too much at a sold-out Croke Park
This was captain Courtney Lawes’ last European game for Saints ahead of his summer move to Brive By the end Smith, who turns 22 next week, was delaying passes with devastating subtlety, while flinging others to outflank the four-time European champions, asThe lessons learnt by Smith and the rest of a mostly youthful Saints squad will be painful in the present – but so valuable in the long run as they look to bring trophy-winning success back to Franklin’s Gardens.
A chunk of today’s crowd was stuck outside and kick-off was delayed by 10 minutes, but while the atmosphere was raucous – and pretty soon, celebratory – Northampton’s midweek mission to acquaint themselves with the fraught history of this citadel of Gaelic games was always secondary to their main aim of assessing where they stand with the redevelopment of their club.
Jamison Gibson-Park, the Leinster and Ireland scrum-half, showed his class early with a quick tap and long pass for the opening try by James Lowe. The tighthead rock Trevor Davison was pinged for taking a scrum down, half a dozen players went offside in front of the kicker on a restart, and only a classic Courtney Lawes turnover in the shadow of Northampton’s posts prevented further damage.
But Lowe had his third try in the 44th minute after a surge by Ryan Baird, and 20-3 was a daunting gap.
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