Brian Clough famously said that if God had intended football to be played in the sky, he\u2019d have put grass up there. Tactical trends in rugby are moving in the opposite direction though, and with Noah Caluori set to make his second Prem start, Northampton\u2019s high-stakes meeting with Saracens on Friday night promises to be a battle in the skies.<\/p>\n
Phil Dowson\u2019s table-topping Saints<\/a>, champions in 2023-24, are the only unbeaten team remaining after three wins and a draw. Second-placed Saracens are two points back, having scored a league-leading 168 points to Northampton\u2019s second-best 138. Nine players involved in England\u2019s training camp this week will start at Franklin\u2019s Gardens.<\/p>\n There would no shortage of intrigue, then, even before throwing the towering teenage figure of Caluori into the mix. The 6ft 5in wing scored five tries to demolish Sale last Saturday, prompting an invitation from Steve Borthwick<\/a> to Pennyhill Park before the autumn internationals and generating a week of excitable headlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark McCall, the Saracens director of rugby, said this match will test the 19-year-old\u2019s readiness for the international game given the quality of opposition. But it is also likely to show how players with prodigious aerial ability are thriving after the crackdown on escort defenders<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the law change in terms of escorting and shielding \u2026 it has to be an attacking weapon,\u201d McCall said, implying their intention is to rain contestable kicks down on Northampton\u2019s defence. \u201cIt\u2019s almost mad not to use it. Six years ago, kicking might have been seen as a negative thing. I think everyone\u2019s woken up to the fact that in the current rules it can be a very positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Saints are known for a progressive approach: attacking space, offloading, seeking to stretch opponents with width. But Dowson recognises the game has changed and that Saracens<\/a> will provide a specific test. \u201cThe kicking of Owen Farrell and Fergus Burke [against Sale] was outstanding,\u201d he said. \u201cCaluori\u2019s ability to float through the air, to \u2018fly\u2019, effectively, means it\u2019s very difficult. That\u2019s one of the things the rule change of not blocking has opened up. It\u2019s something we\u2019re going to have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n Dowson welcomed his England contingent back to club duty on Thursday and all six start against Saracens. Fraser Dingwall will mark his 150th Northampton appearance at inside-centre, while at No 6 Alex Coles brings up his century of league games for the club. Tommy Freeman, Alex Mitchell and Fin Smith start in the back-line while Henry Pollock \u2013 who whipped up his share of hype last season \u2013 may seek to reclaim attention from Caluori.<\/p>\n Fraser Dingwall will play his 150th match for Northampton on Friday. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Theo Dan and Maro Itoje start in the Saracens pack, with Owen Farrell at No 12, and Caluori on the wing. Tom Willis is at No 8 after announcing his intention to return to France \u2013 he was consequently omitted from Borthwick\u2019s training squad \u2013 while there is power and dynamism on the bench with Ben Earl, Nick Isiekwe and Theo McFarland ready to make an impact.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n McCall, sensibly, this week sought to avoid fuelling the Caluori hype. Is it a question of Saracens helping him navigate all the attention? \u201cI think so,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great young man to work with. He\u2019s got a lot of good people around him at the club and he works very hard at his game. He got to experience the England camp there for a couple of days as well. We\u2019ll just crack on as we normally do with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if he had been particularly impressed by Caluori\u2019s maturity McCall took a wider view. \u201cI\u2019ve been surprised not just by him, but we\u2019ve got quite a lot of players in their first year out of school in our senior academy now,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve started to notice is an increased maturity in all those players. More ready to play sooner than before, both physically and emotionally. I think our academy staff are doing a brilliant job.\u201d<\/p>\n As they aim to protect their unbeaten Prem record Dowson and his Northampton side, in turn, will have a job to do in trying to contain Caluori.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Clough famously said that if God had intended football to be played in the sky, he\u2019d have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-235344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}