Gallagher Premiership: Leicester earn statement win over defending champions Northampton

Leicester made it three wins from four Gallagher Premiership games under Michael Cheika as they beat rivals and defending champions Northampton 24-8 on Saturday.

Freddie Steward, Olly Cracknell and Ollie Chessum were the try-scorers for the Tigers, who were impressive in the second half after riding their luck at times in the first 40 minutes.

For Northampton, it’s a second defeat for their title defence, the Saints guilty of letting a host of chances slip through their fingers before Tommy Freeman finally went in for a late consolation score.

Leicester broke through after only four minutes when a tapped penalty led to Jack van Poortvliet passing to full-back Steward, who steamed through to score down the left.

Northampton thought they had hit back in the 13th minute when Sam Graham stretched for the try line, but a TMO check judged him to have knocked on in the act of grounding the ball.

From the drop-out, Graham then suffered what looked a serious knee injury from a dangerous tackle by Tigers flanker Tommy Reffell, who was sin-binned as a result.

There was more frustration for the Saints when a Freeman try was ruled out for a knock-on by captain George Furbank in the build-up before Handre Pollard extended the Tigers’ lead to 10-0 with a simple penalty.

The visitors were then reduced to 14 men after 33 minutes when hooker Curtis Langdon was shown a yellow card for his shoulder making contact with Harry Wells’ head. While his side were a man light Fin Smith put Northampton on the board with a penalty three minutes before half-time.

Four minutes into the second half, Pollard became the third player in the match to see yellow when he made head-on-head contact with Furbank.

But the Tigers were dominating the scrum and it was from this solid base that they claimed their second try in the 54th minute as number eight Cracknell burrowed his way over under the posts.

Pearson was sin-binned for killing the ball in the shadow of his own posts and the hosts quickly killed the match as a contest when England lock Chessum powered over.

Bristol comeback stuns Exeter | Bath beat Gloucester in thriller

Gabi Ibitoye scored an eight-minute try hat-trick as Bristol secured a stunning 40-35 comeback win over Exeter to maintain their proud unbeaten away record that stretches back to last November.

They looked well beaten when Chiefs wingers Mani Feyi-Waboso and Paul Brown-Bampoe scored two tries apiece to put second-from-bottom Exeter 32-12 up with 18 minutes remaining and on the verge of their first win of the season.

But a hugely costly yellow card for replacement hooker Dan Frost four minutes later, for stopping a tap penalty being taken quickly, saw Bristol score 28 points while he was off the pitch, running in four converted tries, with Ibitoye getting three of them.

Bath prop Beno Obano scored two tries as his side claimed a thrilling 55-31 win over Gloucester in the West Country derby played in front of a capacity crowd at Kingsholm.

Bath trailed 24-17 at the interval but they turned the game firmly on its head to run out deserved winners by scoring eight tries to four.

Josh Bayliss, Tom De Glanville, Ollie Lawrence, Jaco Coetzee and Finn Russell were also on the try-scoring sheet, with Russell adding five conversions and a penalty, while there was also a penalty try award.

Max Llewellyn, Tomos Williams, Charlie Atkinson and Ollie Thorley scored Gloucester’s tries as Santiago Carreras converted three of them and kicked a penalty, with George Barton adding a conversion.

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