Again Northampton were unable to maintain their two-score lead for long with Yann Thomas burrowing his way over the line after the home side infringed directly from kick off. Callum Sheedy, who had missed all his kicks until this point, converted to leave Bristol 24-17 down at half-time. 

Northampton dominated the next 20 minutes and took the game out of sight. Dingwall delivered a perfectly timed pass for Freeman to go under the posts and to make matters worse for Bristol Radradra was sin-binned for taking out Biggar off the ball. Then they were down to 13 men when Fitz Harding was yellow carded for a high tackle on Dingwall. Northampton immediately took advantage with some lovely midfield interplay resulting in Freeman putting Collins over in the corner.

The game was gone by this point so Paul Hill’s yellow for a deliberate knock on and Alapati Leiua’s bonus point try were rendered footnotes as Bristol slumped to their ninth defeat in ten away games this season. 

Match details

Northampton Saints: G Furbank (M Proctor, 55); T Freeman, F Dingwall (G Hendy, 72), R Hutchinson, T Collins; D Biggar, A Mitchell (T James, 64); A Waller (N Auterac, 56), S Matavesi (M Haywood 64), P Hill, D Ribbans (A Coles, 54), A Ratuniyarawa (A Moon, 38), C Lawes, L Ludlam, J Augustus (C Carey, 69)

Sin-bin: P Hill 67-77

Bristol Bears: C Piutau (P O’Conor, 59); S Naulago (L Morahan, 29), S Radradra, A Frisch, A Leiua; C Sheedy (T Eden, 53), A Uren (H Randall, 53); Y Thomas (J Solomon, 77), H Thacker (J Kerr, 64), J Afoa (J Armstrong, 60), D Attwood, J Joyce, C Vui, J Heenan (S Jeffries, 48), F Harding 

Sin-bin: Radradra 57-67; Harding 60-70

Scoring sequence: 0-5, Radradra try; 3-5, Biggar pen; 8-5, Collins try; 10-5, Biggar con; 15-5, Hutchinson try; 17-5, Biggar con; 17-10, Sheedy try; 22-10, Ludlam try; 24-10, Biggar con; 24-15, Thomas try; 24-17, Sheedy con; 27-17, Biggar pen; 32-17, Freeman try; 34-17, Biggar con; 39-17, Collins try; 39-22, Leiua try

Attendance: 12,923

Referee: Karl Dickson