George Furbank sends England a message as Northampton see off Sale

Northampton 21 Sale 17

George Furbank put himself in the Six Nations shop window as he guided Northampton to the top of the Premiership and retained his golden touch as captain. Furbank helped Saints, spurred by Courtney Lawes off the bench, to light the blue touchpaper in a second-half that made up for a first period of complete dross.

It was the full-back’s quick thinking which provided the game-breaking try when he took a quick tap penalty on 69 minutes with Northampton 17-14 down and dived over the line. The TMO was needed to judge the grounding because replacement prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour had tried to tackle Furbank from an offside position so referee Matt Carley gave the penalty try and yellow-carded the youngster.

In the absence of Lewis Ludlam, Furbank has captained Northampton nine times, and won the lot. That has added another string to his bow. And with a new World Cup cycle under way Furbank, 27, could add to his handful of England caps as he can do a turn at 10 or 15. Steve Borthwick is set to name his squad in the middle of January.

“He has had a taste of England and has not had many opportunities and he is clearly frustrated because he is an ambitious and driven lad who wants to go on and do those things,” said Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby.

“He came in with a mindset having not been in that group to prove a point almost. The fact he has become more powerful in pre-season has had an impact on his performance. He is an intelligent fellow and leadership has allowed him to put his mark on the team.”

Furbank’s score capped a resilient performance by Saints who looked down and out when George Ford’s drop goal on 58 minutes, supplementing Luke Cowan-Dickie’s try 10 minutes earlier, put Sale 10 points up. But Lawes, who will not be at the Six Nations, helped put some spark in the game and Alex Mitchell went over from short range to give the game a pulsating finish. Sale however went away with a bonus point – something they did not manage in hammerings at Exeter and Harlequins earlier this season.

Director of rugby Alex Sanderson said: “I thought their mentality and effort was outstanding tonight and you are not going to lose many games with that kind of mentality. It feels a lot different from a couple of other losses we have had this year when we have just not been at the races. We were in the fight, up for it, and probably had the game by the short and curlies if not for some lost collisions and some discipline.”

The first half was desperate and contained more than 40 kicks – most of them pointless – and had virtually nothing in the way of attacking rugby until just before the break. So much for selling the game, although there were probably a few converts after a second-half that was light years away from what was on offer earlier in the day.

Scotland and England are eyeing the Sale trio of wings Tom Roebuck and Arron Reed plus scrum-half Gus Warr while Fin Smith, the Northampton fly-half, could also become the subject of a tug of war between the national coaches Gregor Townsend and Borthwick. But if either of that pair search the video of the first-half for any clues with Six Nations selection, they might as well not bother.

Northampton have been the free-wheeling side in the Premiership so far this season, but they were spilling balls left, right and centre when they did look to attack with ball in hand and scrum-half Alex Mitchell’s kick to nowhere from 25 metres out from the Sale line summed it up. Sale were no better on the front foot as they too put boot to ball more often than looking to counter attack. That meant Saints defenders could hang back and the match slumped into long bouts of kick tennis.

Eventually, just as the crowd were ready to witness a first scoreless opening 40 minutes in the league since Gloucester and Leicester served up a similar stalemate in March, Ford was instrumental in unpicking the Northampton defence.

Rob du Preez, shifted to 12 in the absence of Manu Tuilagi, combined with his fly-half who looped around and put full-back Joe Carpenter over with three minutes to go to the break. Thankfully with Lawes and Furbank to the fore things livened up after the break.

Match details

Scoring sequence (Northampton first): 0-5 Carpenter try; 0-7 Ford con (half-time) 0-12 Cowan-Dickie try, 0-14 Ford con, 5-14 Furbank try, 7-14 Smith con, 7-17 Ford drop goal, 12-17 Mitchell try, 14-17 Smith con, 21-17 Northampton penalty try
Northampton: G.Furbank (capt); T.Freeman, B.Odendaal (T.Litchfield 73), R.Hutchinson, O.Sleightholme; F.Smith, A.Mitchell; A.Waller (T.Haffar 56), S.Matavesi (C.Langdon 48), T.Davison (P.Hill 54-75), C.Munga (A.Moon 48), A.Coles, A.Scott-Young (C.Lawes 58), T.Pearson, J.Augustus (S.Graham 70) 
Replacement not used: C.Braley
Sale: J.Carpenter; T.Roebuck, S.James, R.Du Preez (R.Ma’asi-White 73), A.Reed (T.Veainu 72); G.Ford, G.Warr (N.Thomas 76); R.Harrison (T.Onasanya 75), L.Cowan-Dickie (T.Taylor 58), N.Schonert (A.Opoku-Fordjour 48), C.Wiese (S.Dugdale 44), J.Hill (J.Beaumont 63), E.Van Rhyn (S.Dugdale 40+3-HT), B.Curry (capt), J-L.Du Preez (N.Schonert 73)
Yellow card: Opoku-Fordjour (69) Referee: M Carley (RFU)
Attendance: 15,153