Dan Evans scores twice as Ospreys hold off Saints in Champions Cup thriller

If Northampton were in a hole before this defeat – as their captain and chairman had said – they had all but dug their own graves, and perhaps even that of their director of rugby Jim Mallinder, until a remarkable rally that at the very least warmed up those frozen spectators who had not abandoned their side.

With less than 20 minutes to go the Ospreys led by 30 points and Northampton looked desperate in almost every department, but they then proceeded to score four tries in the space of eight minutes. The last was scored by Harry Mallinder, but after one of numerous late fights broke out immediately afterwards, he was shown a yellow card. The conversion, taken by Cobus Reinach, was missed and that left Northampton 11 points adrift.

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It was the end of the scoring but not the end of the off-the-ball stuff. The referee Alexandre Ruiz showed a red card to Hanno Dirksen for a high hit on Juan Pablo Estelles, the last word of a heated match that boiled over after barely simmering for an hour. It is a defeat for Northampton on the ledger, however, and since September they have won just one of 10 matches in all competitions and that win was in the Anglo-Welsh Cup. It is form that will only pile pressure on the under-fire Mallinder.

There were mitigating factors, chiefly the loss to injury of both the fly-half Piers Francis and his replacement, Stephen Myler, but Northampton were deeply unimpressive in the first half and their inability to trouble the Ospreys when the visiting winger Jeff Hassler was in the sin-bin for a high tackle is cause for concern indeed. Hassler was still in the sin-bin when the Ospreys, themselves on a terrible run of form, scored the opening try, Evans celebrating his 100th appearance with a score that owed as much to the Welsh side’s scrum dominance as it did the swift hands of Sam Davies, which put his fullback away.

Northampton were reeling and unable to make inroads into the Ospreys’ 22. The visitors meanwhile, having tightened up their discipline following seven penalties against in the opening quarter, were flexing their muscles, with Scott Baldwin among those to the fore, and Owen Watkin demonstrating why he has registered on Wales’s radar this autumn.

Their second try however, was again thanks to sleight of hand, this time from the outside-centre, Kieron Fonotia, who freed Hassler on the left. The Canada winger coasted past David Ribbans and found Tom Habberfield inside to cruise in under the posts. Davies converted for the second time for a commanding 17-3 lead after he and Myler had exchanged early penalties.

Northampton’s dismal half was perhaps best summed up on the stroke of half-time when Lewis Ludlam, making his first start in the competition, failed to find Ribbans wide on the right after a neat passing move involving Mallinder, now at fly-half, and Ahsee Tuala. The overlap had been butchered, and you got the feeling Northampton’s hopes of victory had too as Mallinder’s side trudged off to a few boos at the interval.

If that was a demonstration of dissatisfaction, it was disbelief that greeted Alun Wyn Jones running in from nearly halfway – outpacing the Northampton prop Jamal Ford-Robinson on his way to the try-line – but Ruiz went upstairs and Davies was adjudged to have been offside when his intervention had forced Mallinder to spill the ball in front of the Wales captain.

But by the 47th minute, the Ospreys had their third score – Hassler this time finishing off the most routine of tries down the left where Northampton were badly exposed numerically after losing possession in midfield. An already sparse crowd thinned considerably. Northampton’s woes continued – Juan Pablo Estelles shanking a terrible clearance, and the Ospreys had the bonus point when Evans burst through a gaping hole and fed Davies, who found Fonotia to go over in the left corner – Davies again converting.

Dylan Hartley got a pushover try before Evans and Hassler both added their second scores of the match – the Ospreys at this stage leading by 30 points, and without the international trio of Rhys Webb, Justin Tipuric and Dan Biggar, who would have been watching with mixed feelings from his position as a TV pundit for the day.

Cue Northampton’s fightback. First Nic Groom finished off well in the right-hand corner, then Rob Horne from close range, soon followed by Ahsee Tuala and then Mallinder. Things were heating up, tempers were flaring and Ruiz showed yellow cards to Mallinder and the Ospreys replacement Rob McCosker, and a red to Dirksen as the Ospreys stumbled over the line.