Northampton Saints U18s ended their final regular season PREM Next Gen league fixtures with a 24-47 home defeat to Bristol Bears.
Despite tries from Will Hepher, Will Howes, Sonny Goode and Elijah Jeyes; Saints were unable to overcome the Bears who will now play in the final against Bath next week.
Reflecting on the result, Head Coach Charlie Reed said: “Firstly well done to Bristol, I thought they played a great game today and good luck to them in the final.
“Ultimately, we didn’t value the ball enough which gave Bristol opportunities and that cost us the match. Hopefully, we’ll be able to turn it around for next Sunday on finals day.”
FIRST HALF
It was possibly one of the fastest scores of the season for Saints as Bristol dropped the kick off allowing Saints to launch off a scrum and an offload from the floor gave Hepher a free run straight onto the ball and under the posts.
But Bristol responded after multiple penalties were given away by Saints, they entered the red zone and went over from a driving maul following a kick to the corner.
They added two more scores in similar fashion. The second they launched from a scrum down the blindside before crashing over from short range and the third derived from another rolling maul.
The visitors added one more before the break when Saints were caught offside in the middle third. Bristol kicked to the corner and then crossed the line after a few close-range phases.
SECOND HALF
Saints came out of the blocks firing for the second half as they launched a play into the Bears 22, but eventually were tackled into touch. However, Bristol made a mistake at the line out, coughing up possession on their own five-metre line handing possession back to Saints who launched hands out wide for Howes to finish in the corner.
Bears responded immediately coming back at Saints with their centre breaking a tackle and getting the offload way to his inside man who crashed over.
Despite the visitors going a man down for a high tackle, it didn’t stop their attacking flow, launching from a lineout inside their own half with the left winger making the break and running it in. It was followed by another shortly after with the second row picking off an interception before showing his pace to finish under the posts.
Saints had the final say with two final tries; one from Goode who broke from the base of the scrum down the blindside to finish and a second from Jeyes after a nice attacking team try set up by a lovely line break from Hepher.
The young Saints have one more fixture left of the season next Sunday at Kingsholm on the Academy League Finals day against a to-be-confirmed opponent.
LINE-UPS
Northampton Saints U18s: 15 Hardy Linnell, 14 Elijah Jeyes, 13 Sonny Goode (c), 12 Cal Tarry, 11 Charlie Tamani, 10 Kai Manson, 9 Caelin Chin; 1 Lucas Veevers, 2 Kingsley Gallimore, 3 Aiden Reid, 4 Rafferty Hewitt, 5 Archie McHarg, 6 Seb Dare, 7 Reuben Williams, 8 Will Hepher.
Replacements: 16 Charlie Utting, 17 Ben Jones, 18 George Tonga’uiha, 19 Connor Wright, 21 Harry Nath, 22 Ashton Cox, 23 Will Howes.
Bristol Bears U18s: 15 Caspar Reeves, 14 George Williams,13 Malachy Parsons, 12 Will Moore, 11 Harry Randall, 10 Bruno Lamb, 9 Monty Jones; 1 Kaiden Corbett, 2 Casper Wheeler, 3 Evan Davies, 4 Will Papp, 5 Monty Wells (c), 6 Jake Smith, 7 Austin Parsons, 8 Noah Williams.
Replacements: 16. Theo Prole, 17. Michael Whittaker, 18. Joe Chambers, 19. Ned Hill, 20. Jayjay Hancock, 21. Evan Russell, 22. Olly Bonds, 23. Jack Taylor.