TOMMY FREEMAN’S hat-trick helped Northampton secure a place in the Premiership play-offs with a 65-26 thumping of Newcastle on Saturday.
The Saints scored 10 tries in total during an extremely open contest at Franklin’s Gardens as they reached the semi-finals for the first time in three years.
Northampton face old rivals Leicester in the last four next weekend, while Saracens will host defending champions Harlequins.
“Two months ago I think we were sitting eighth or ninth and a long way away from looking fourth,” said Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd.
“We talked about the fact we were probably playing knock-out football and we’ve managed to just sneak into that top four.”
Leicester guaranteed top spot in the table by seeing off Wasps 20-10 at Welford Road to complete a perfect record at home in the regular season.
Gloucester missed out on the postseason despite thrashing a much-changed Saracens 54-7.
A record crowd of nearly 15,000 at Sandy Park saw Exeter edge a 13-try thriller 47-38 over Harlequins.
However, even with the bonus point, Exeter still finished seventh in the table, the first time they have missed out on a play-off spot since 2015.
Bath – where departing Munster coach, Johann van Graan, will end up, were condemned to a bottom-of-the-table finish as they suffered a 43-27 defeat to Worcester.
English Premiership table after Saturday’s matches (played, won, drawn, lost, points for, points against, bonus points, total points):
Leicester 24 20 0 4 726 452 14 94
Saracens 24 17 1 6 769 509 17 87
Harlequins 24 15 0 9 647 554 20 80
Northampton 24 14 0 10 764 639 19 75
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Gloucester 24 13 1 10 685 525 19 73
Sale 24 12 3 9 559 495 14 70
Exeter 24 13 0 11 584 534 17 69
London Irish 24 9 5 10 660 666 17 63
Wasps 24 11 1 12 614 600 14 60
Bristol 24 8 0 16 573 718 16 48
Worcester 24 6 1 17 451 814 9 35
Newcastle 24 6 1 17 436 660 8 34
Bath 24 5 1 18 461 763 10 34
Note: Top 4 qualify for post-season play-offs
He’s not as disappointed as some on relation to how far off they are? They are miles off. No offence to Munster but they are an average,though very gutsy and committed side,and they have hammers Leinster twice in a row now. I do agree that they haven’t had any continuity with combinations,especially from 9-13,and hopefully when the likes of OBrien, Healy, Moore, Teo, McFadden etc come back then there will be a big improvement.
I must take the opportunity to praise Matt O’Connor for the huge improvement in Guinness Pro12 teams. Ever since he arrived at Leinster, every other team has greatly improved. Teams, that two years ago were almost brushed aside by Leinster, have now reached the heights that Leinster once inhabited alone.
Treviso have improved, Munster have improved, Edinburgh have improved, Scarlets have improved, Dragons have improved, Zebra have improved, Connacht (brilliant tonight, by the way) have improved..
In fact, they have all improved so much that Leinster has great difficulty taking on any of them.
By extension, Wasps and Harlequins have shown just how brilliant they are too due to you Matt.
I can hardly wait to see how much Castres get better when they arrive at the RDS soon. They will build statues in your image all over the town.
Matt, you have done European rugby a great service. They have all reached and surpassed Leinster this season thanks to your input at Leinster and everywhere else.
Thank you Matt and Happy New year!.
(and also to Mr Caputo, the news paper seller. Your influence on all other teams has been exceptional)