Premiership: Northampton’s annihilation of Newcastle seals playoff spot in final round of regular season

The Saints all but sealed the bonus point victory in the first half with four tries, two of which came from hooker Sam Matavesi within 22 minutes of kick-off, before the victorious hosts added a further six five-pointers in the second half.

Despite Northampton winning convincingly, an attempted comeback was on the cards at one point for the visiting side after they scored three tries in the space of 10 minutes, with the first being a penalty try leading to the sin-binning of scrum-half Alex Mitchell.

However, the Falcons were ultimately unable to bring home the bacon after diminishing the Saints’ lead to 10 points at the 57-minute mark, as lock Sean Robinson was sent off with 21 minutes left to play leaving the side with 14 men for a quarter of the game.

Dan Biggar kicked an early penalty for Northampton, who then scored their first try in the ninth minute when a loose pass by Matias Orlando fell for Matavesi, who kicked ahead before winning the race to score.

A slick move involving Biggar and Fraser Dingwall then led to Alex Coles being put in the clear before Matavesi broke off a driving maul to score his second, with Biggar’s conversion taking the score to 22-0 after just 24 minutes.

Newcastle then finally fired a shot themselves when their captain, Callum Chick, burst onto Cameron Nordli-Kelemeti’s pass to charge into space before stepping George Furbank for a fine individual score.

Northampton soon had their bonus point in the bag, however, when Api Ratuniyarawa went on a charge down the left before passing inside to Coles, who quickly moved the ball on to give Mitchell an easy finish.

After Newcastle lock Greg Peterson was sin-binned for an uppercut to Saints skipper Lewis Ludlam, Freeman took the score to 36-7 at