Jake Sharp shared his pride in the environment at Northampton Saints, after the next generation of players took centre stage in Friday night’s East Midlands derby victory over Leicester Tigers.
The men in Black, Green and Gold – or more aptly described as the ‘boys’ given the matchday squad averaged just 21.92 years of age – saw two more Academy players make their senior debuts in the 39-19 success, while multiple other players with single-digit appearances for the club added further minutes to their Saints journeys in the PREM Rugby Cup success.
“I was really proud of them,” said Kicking Coach, Sharp. “They looked like what the senior group have been putting in, in the PREM and Europe. That’s what we try to aspire to do with the Academy group that has been training for the last eight or nine weeks but not playing, it’s testament to them for putting their hands up going into the next one.
“That’s testament to the environment that Dows [Phil Dowson] and Sam [Vesty] have put in place, to allow those lads to know exactly what they have to do and to express themselves as individuals.
“They have been doing a lot of hard work for the last two or three years to get to this moment, so I am really proud of them to put on the performance that they did tonight.”
Across the park, youth shone in front of a strong DPD Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens crowd. Amongst them was 18-year-old fly-half Hugh Shields, whose excellent kicking from hand produced multiple assists, along with numerous probing penalty punts to touch.
“He has been training incredibly well for the last eight or nine weeks,” praised Sharp. “To learn from Fin Smith and Anthony Belleau is an incredible place to be. Alongside Sonny Goode coming on at 30 minutes, and getting a performance like he did at scrum-half. But fundamentally their job now is to be consistent over a long period of time and our challenge is to support them on that journey.”
The youthfulness of the matchday squad was underlined by a planned 33rd-minute substitution that saw 19-year-old Henry Lumley, who made his Saints debut in May 2025 aged just 17 years and 317 days old, returning to action following reconstructive knee surgery, being replaced by 17-year-old Will Catley.
“Will has been at school for the last three days and we’ve only seen him on Tuesdays, and Henry Lumley has been out for nine months,” said Sharp. “It is an exciting thing that the Academy is doing really well between Hoppers [Mark Hopley], Charlie Reed and Charles [Rylands] around getting the opportunity for those lads to come in and train with us. I am really proud of the whole environment.”