Despite Saints having entered Quins\u2019 22 a dozen times before the half hour mark, the away side could not break through the home defence \u2013 but neither could Quins breach Northampton\u2019s line until just seconds from half-time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quins pushed to within five metres of Saints\u2019 tryline before spotting space out on the left and sending the ball deftly through the hands to send Jamie Benson over with the last play of the half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SECOND HALF:<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s missed conversion before the break saw the sides re-emerge at 12-12 but Saints crept in front again, eight minutes into the second half. A scrum penalty let Weimann ignite Northampton\u2019s attack, with Kemeny the man who found a gap in Quins\u2019 line to dive over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quins answered immediately, with Smith sending Dombrandt through a gap who in turn found Cassius Cleaves on his shoulder. The winger sprinted in for the score on the left and level things once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saints had thought they might be in again when Belleau hacked through for Kemeny to chase but a knock-on denied the back rower a double. And the home side responded by pulling ahead themselves, pushing through the forwards before Benson sent a looping pass over to Cameron Anderson in space on the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But a solo-stunner got Northampton back level again. Thame gathered the high ball in the falling rain at the Stoop, charging back at Quins before dropping the ball on his boot and winning the footrace to his own grubber to score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And another moment of individual brilliance saw Northampton break the try-scoring record across the league as a whole \u2013 when Weimann, who found himself out on the wing after a raft of Saints changes, intercepted a stray Quins pass and sprinted in for the score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the home side hit straight back, sending Dombrandt over from close range once again \u2013 with Smith\u2019s conversion making it 31-31 with seven minutes left on the clock.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the final word would be Quins\u2019. The home side went from within their own half, putting the ball through the hands before sending Tom Lawday over in the corner to take the result out of Saints\u2019 hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LINE-UPS:<\/p>\n
Quins: 15 Jamie Benson, 14 Cameron Anderson, 13 Cadan Murley, 12 Bryn Bradley, 11 Cassius Cleaves, 10 Marcus Smith, 9 Will Porter; 1 Will Hobson, 2 Sam Riley, 3 Ollie Streeter, 4 Jonny Green, 5 Stephan Lewies, 6 Jack Kenningham, 7 Will Evans, 8 Alex Dombrandt (c).\u00a0
Replacements: 16 Jimmy Staples, 17 Boris Wenger, 18 Pedro Delgado, 19 Kieran Treadwell, 20 Guido Petti Pagadiz\u00e1bal, 21 Tom Lawday, 22 Stu Townsend, 23 Josh Bellamy.<\/p>\n
Saints: 15 James Pater, 14 James Martin, 13 Tom Litchfield, 12 Fraser Dingwall (c), 11 James Ramm, 10 Anthony Belleau, 9 Jonny Weimann; 1 Danilo Fischetti, 2 Curtis Langdon, 3 Cleopas Kundiona, 4 Tom Lockett, 5 JJ Van Der Mescht, 6 Josh Kemeny, 7 Tom Pearson, 8 Sam Graham.
Replacements: 16 Craig Wright, 17 Tom West, 18 Sonny Tonga\u2019uiha, 19 Chunya Munga, 20 Callum Chick, 21 Tom James, 22 Toby Thame, 23 George Hendy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite Saints having entered Quins\u2019 22 a dozen times before the half hour mark, the away side could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-625783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625783","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=625783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}