Northampton's miserable run continues with ninth defeat in 10 games at hands of Ospreys

Northampton’s miserable run of results continued on a bleak night for Jim Mallinder, the Premiership’s longest-serving director of rugby, as his side lost their third pool match out of three in this season's European Champions Cup, while Ospreys kept alive their slim hopes of making it through to a first quarter-final in eight years.

Saints are without a win in eight league and European games since they beat Harlequins at the end of September, and by conceding six tries to their Welsh opponents they suffered a second embarrassing hammering in this competition to go with the record 57-13 loss to Saracens here in round one.

Ospreys have been in similarly poor nick, but as they celebrated only their second victory in 12 games in the league and Europe they can still spy a route to qualification that would be helped if Pool Two rivals Saracens beat Clermont Auvergne home and away in the next eight days.

Mallinder took over here in 2007 and led Saints to the European Cup final in Cardiff in 2011 and the Premiership title three years later, but these are desperate times for the former England full-back who saw his side’s defence pierced far too easily as Ospreys built a 35-point lead by the 60th minute.

It was a madcap match of 11 tries in all and several flare-ups between opponents, capped off by a red card to Ospreys wing Hanno Dirksen three minutes from the end for a swinging-arm tackle to the head of Saints’ replacement Juan Pablo Estelles.

Ospreys overcame the handicap of playing without a quartet of injured Wales internationals in Rhys Webb, Justin Tipuric, Sam Cross and Northampton-bound fly-half Dan Biggar.

The rows of empty seats gave the impression of being transported back to the early days of this competition - not long before Northampton won it in 2000 - when English stadiums were half-full for pool matches.

A few thousand Saints season-ticket holders and floating supporters had decided Christmas shopping or an evening in the pub was a preferable pursuit.

Saints had a calamitously unlucky start, as they lost two fly-halves to injury inside the first 21 minutes.

Piers Francis ran headlong into Ospreys No.8 James King and was taken off with suspected concussion. Then Francis’s replacement Steve Myler hobbled off with a leg injury.

In the resulting reshuffle, Harry Mallinder moved in to fly-half, Ahsee Tuala went to full-back and Juan Pablo Estelles came onto the wing.

Myler had kicked a penalty goal, replied to in kind by Ospreys’ Sam Davies, before the visitors’ opening try, made by a break by Davies from a scrum that took the young Welsh cap hurtling past Mallinder over the gainline. A couple of recycles and a short dart by Scott Baldwin - the Ospreys hooker who earned notoriety a few weeks ago for his biting mishap with a lion in South Africa - finished with Davies sending Dan Evans over for a try to mark the full-back’s 100th appearance for the region.

Davies added the conversion and did so again when scrum-half Tom Habberfield nabbed Ospreys’ second try with 37 minutes gone.

Habberfield started the move with a lovely spin pass away from a ruck, which set the tone for snappy distribution along the three-quarter line and a clean break by left wing Jeff hassle, who had been in the sin bin earlier on for a high tackle.

Northampton attempted to scramble back but Hassler kept his poise to give the scoring pass inside to Habberfield, and Ospreys - who were beaten four times out of four by Northampton in European pool matches in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons - led 17-3 at half-time.

It looked like getting a lot worse for Northampton, very quickly, when Ospreys’ captain Alun Wyn Jones galloped 40 metres to the goalline in the second minute of the second half but the ‘try’ was ruled out for Davies interfering with a pass by Mallinder from an offside position at a ruck.

Jones, the eminent Wales and British & Irish Lions forward, is in his eighth season of skippering the Ospreys but has yet to lead them out of the pool stage in this competition.

The Welsh side’s slim hopes of recapturing their meagre success in the late 2000s, when they lost three quarter-finals in a row up to and including 2010, were enhanced four minutes later, when Davies found clear water on the left again, and Hassler had an easy run-in for a try converted by his fly-half.

And the bonus point was in the bag on 48 minutes as Davies and Evans weaved through some woefully soft Saints tackling behind a ruck and Samoa centre Kieron Fonotia dotted down, with a fifth successful kick from five attempts by Davies to add the extras.

Dylan Hartley rumbled over for a catch-and-drive try for Northampton from a line-out but the relief was temporary, as Evans and Hassler each collected their second tries before the hour mark was reached, with spectacularly simple raids through the Saints’ first-up defence.

Davies converted the first of those tries for Ospreys to lead 43-8, before scrum-half Nic Groom battled his way to a try at the corner for Saints which set off a shoving match involving Jones that spilled over the touchline advertising hoardings.

Rob Horne, in the 67th minute, and Tuala two minutes later, gave the home support something to shout about, but the capture of the try-scoring bonus point was an empty achievement.

An interception and a 50-metre run by Mallinder brought Northampton’s fifth try, and another daft bust-up as Ospreys’ replacement flanker Rob McCusker clattered into the scorer after the grounding to set off another push-and-pull free-for-all.

The chaotic nature of the closing stages became almost comic as Mallinder was lining up the conversion when the referee Alexandre Ruiz decided to send him and McCusker to the sin bin, perhaps on the say-so of the television match official Eric Briquet Campin, with whom Ruiz seemed to spend half the evening in consultation.

Another review was necessary after Dirksen’s lunge on Estelles but Ospreys will take that as a minor blemish after a welcome upturn in fortunes.

Scorers

Northampton Saints: tries: Hartley, Groom, Horne, Tuala, Mallinder; conversions: Mallinder 2; penalty: Myler.

Ospreys: tries: Evans 2, Habberfield, Hassler 2, Fonotia; conversions: Davies 5; penalty Davies.

Teams

Northampton Saints: H Mallinder; A Tuala (C Reinach 73), R Horne, L Burrell, B Foden; P Francis (rep S Myler 9th min; JP Estelles 21), N Groom; F van Wyk (C Ma'afu 53), D Hartley (capt; M Haywood 61), J Ford-Robinson (P Hill 61), D Ribbans (M Paterson 53), C Day (J Gibson 57), C Lawes, L Ludlam, T Harrison.

Ospreys: D Evans; H Dirksen, K Fonotia (J Hook 57), O Watkin, J Hassler (B John 72); S Davies , T Habberfield; N Smith, S Baldwin (S Otten 69), D Arhip (M Fia 61), B Davies (A Beard 64), AW Jones (capt), D Lydiate (R McCusker 63), O Cracknell, J King (R Jenkins 73).

Referee: A Ruiz (France).