Northampton’s brilliant trio are leaving the club in the best hands
You don’t always get what you deserve in sport, not least when it comes to the send-off you dream of, but Courtney Lawes, Alex Waller and Lewis Ludlam were afforded that moment by the rugby gods at Twickenham yesterday and will count themselves blessed
The trio are Northampton through and through even if Ludlam’s formative years included loan spells with Coventry, Moseley and Rotherham, and between them they have notched up well over 800 senior appearances with Waller atop of the pile with a remarkable 378.
Waller, right, at 34 is burning his boots and retiring, Lawes is heading off to France tasked with getting once mighty Brive back into the Top 14 while Ludlam, the youngster at 28, is off to try his luck with resurgent Toulon. That’s three former club skippers right there taking their leave parading the Premiership trophy in front of 82,000 fans.
Such celestial synchronicity is rare. The great Sergio Parisse’s final Italy game was meant to be the pool match with New Zealand in 2019 before Typhoon Hagibis intervened while George North dreamt of concluding his 121-match Test career for Wales with a win over Italy at the Principality in March. Instead, Wales slipped to defeat and he ruptured his Achilles in the final moments.
Owen Farrell and the Vunipola brothers fully intended to bring down the curtain on their remarkable Saracens careers with a final Twickenham appearance of their own yesterday, but Northampton had different ideas and whipped the rug from under their feet in that epic semi-final the other week.
That’s the cruel beauty of sport and for long periods yesterday it seemed that Lady Luck might be at her most capricious. Northampton dodged a bullet against a pumped-up Bath who did superbly well to adapt and adjust after the early sending off of Beno Obano.
We have seen enough fine performances and wins by teams reduced to 14 by an early dismissal to know that there is always hope in such situations, but in a huge showpiece final against such a free-running team as Saints who can cut you in pieces on their day, it was a mighty effort, and our illustrious trio will acknowledge that.
They will also highlight, though, the growing maturity of their younger colleagues which did eventually see Saints pull through and suggest that their departures are in fact very well timed. Northampton are in very good hands, the future as well the present is bright.
All three rolled their sleeves up as usual but it was a tricky afternoon. Although good at the lineout and busy at the breakdown, Lawes did not produce one of his stellar bone-crushing, try-saving performances. Waller endured a tough afternoon at scrum time but typically kept going manfully and Ludlam offered timely heft and experience off the bench but on a testing afternoon it was others who stepped up
George Furbank has been nigh on immaculate all season and continued in that vein against Bath. To these eyes he is the key figure going forward for Saints, the rallying point and fulcrum. Yesterday, he made a brilliant try for Tommy Freeman and slipped effortlessly into the fly-half slot when Fin Smith was forced off at a moment when Saints were struggling. He keeps smiling and always looks calm and these things count in a team like Northampton who are prepared to live on the edge.
“George Furbank is the key figure going forward for Saints, the rallying point and the fulcrum”
Freeman is another. Unbelievably good in the air, big tackles when required and classy tries. Both are proper England players now and will have to juggle those dual responsibilities, but both are well up to the task.
Alex Mitchell also comes into that category as well. Mitchell experienced a testing, occasionally torrid, afternoon. Ben Spencer in particular and Bath in general had clearly targeted him and were determined to make life a living hell for the attack-minded scrum-half.
They definitely rattled Mitchell, who made a few poor choices and headlessly ran a tapped penalty that needed slotting over. But who was it running that clever cheat line to connect with George Hendy and who was it displaying dazzling footwork to finish off that vital try in the 74th minute? Cometh the hour, cometh the man and Mitchell rarely fails to step up when his team needs him.
And Hendy? We have seen glimpses of his exciting, unusual, awkward but devastating running style before this season. He is only 21 but Saints haven’t hesitated to use him when required, he is an X factor player and there is no point holding him back. Already he has 14 tries in 22 Saints games and yesterday’s glorious assist felt as good as a try. It certainly moved Austin Healey to nominate him as MOM and the recipient of the Peter Deakin medal which is the reward for that accolade in the final.
How do Saints replace this trio and indeed young lock Alex Moon who is also moving after signing for Bayonne? Is there any point trying for a like-for-like replacement or do you just trust the different talents you are already nurturing? I would suggest Saints are in pretty good shape. In the backrow you probably needn’t look beyond No 8 Juarno Augustus, Tom Pearson at blindside and openside flanker Henry Pollock, the U20 Six Nations player of the tournament this year. The speedy Pollock could be sensational in such a free running team but if they want to gradually blood the young man the excellent and ever versatile Sam Graham can slot in wherever required
None of those permutations will give you the lineout presence of Lawes in the backrow although for the record I think Alex Coles – not dissimilar to Lawes physically – has more potential at blindside flanker than lock. With the departure of Moon, though, he will be required to soldier on in the boiler house for the foreseeable future. As for Waller’s replacement, Emmanuel Iyogun is an immensely strong and focussed young prop who is learning very quickly. When he came on in the second half, briefly, he found himself at odds with referee Christophe Ridley as well as the Bath front row. Instead of losing the plot and possibly the game, he listened to Ridley’s requirements, made a few changes and steadied the ship. The old heads in the Saints pack nodded their appreciation. They can leave with a clear conscience.
