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<\/p>\nLeicester Tigers hosted Northampton Saints in the East Midlands derby<\/p>\n
Northampton Saints players pile into Nicky Smith after the Leicester player celebrated(Image: TNT)<\/p>\n
Nicky Smith and Tommy Reffell found themselves at the centre of a fiery flashpoint just two minutes into the East Midlands derby between Leicester Tigers and Northampton Saints.<\/p>\n
The heated scenes erupted at Welford Road moments after Wales flanker Reffell produced one of his trademark jackal turnovers to win Leicester an early penalty.<\/p>\n
Standing over the grounded Reffell was fellow Welshman Smith, who celebrated the turnover passionately and appeared to direct his roar towards Northampton hooker Robbie Smith.<\/p>\n
The Saints forward immediately took exception, springing to his feet and grabbing Smith before shoving him away.<\/p>\n
Within seconds, players from both sides piled in as tensions exploded in front of a raucous derby crowd.<\/p>\n
The incident prompted an animated reaction from TNT Sports commentator Ben Kay, who sensed trouble immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to kick-off!\u201d Kay shouted on commentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cNicky Smith is in there, here comes [Alex] Mitchell. Now the big boys arrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be a bit of pushing and shoving, no one will throw anything and the referee will warn them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n
Fellow commentator Nick Mullins then highlighted the significance of the fixture and the intensity surrounding the rivalry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always debate about which derby means the most,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you live in the West Country you\u2019ll have your own view. If you live in London you\u2019ll have your own view.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you live up here there\u2019s only one derby and we are watching it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fiery exchange perfectly summed up the ferocity of the East Midlands rivalry, with both sides clearly desperate to land an early psychological blow.<\/p>\n
Wales loose-forward Reffell has built a reputation as one of the PREM’s most destructive breakdown operators, while fellow front-rower Smith has brought a confrontational edge to Leicester\u2019s pack since joining the club.<\/p>\n
Their involvement in the early melee will doubtless have delighted Tigers supporters, who responded noisily as tempers flared between the two sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leicester Tigers hosted Northampton Saints in the East Midlands derby Northampton Saints players pile into Nicky Smith after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[93736,5903,101,93735,56,54,55,9015],"class_list":["post-575061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-nicky-smith","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-tommy-reffell","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wales-rugby-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}