Finn Smith knocked over a last-minute penalty to edge his battle with Finn Russell as Northampton beat league leaders Bath 35-34 in a pulsating game of nine tries.
It was Bath’s fifth consecutive loss at Franklin’s Gardens, but they showed remarkable resilience to recover from being 19 points down to lead with three minutes to go and outscore their opponents by five tries to four.
Joe Cokanasiga scored two tries with Orlando Bailey, Will Stuart and Max Ojomoh also on the scoresheet as Russell converted three before landing a 44-metre penalty to put Bath 32-34 in front with time almost up.
The Scotland fly-half looked to have won the match for his side, however, Smith had the final say as Sam Underhill offended just outside the Bath 22 which allowed the England fly-half to step up and claim the points with the final kick. George Hendy, Fraser Dingwall, James Ramm and Josh Kemeny scored Saints’ tries, with Smith kicking three conversions and three penalties, while Scotland’s Rory Hutchinson played the full 80 minutes at inside centre.
Another Scotland international, Josh Bayliss, came off the bench for Bath after just 10 minutes to replace the injured Guy Pepper and the flanker ending up playing 50 minutes on the wing following another injury to Will Muir. Collecting two losing bonus points still allowed Bath to extend their lead to six points at the top of the Gallagher Premiership table.
“It was a phenomenal game and certainly an emotional roller-coaster, but we’ll just have to take our two points and move on,” Bath director of rugby Johann van Graan said. “Saints had so much speed and accuracy early on and converted well in that opening 20 minutes. but then our power got us back into the game.
The guys are obviously gutted as they fought so hard, but we showed we are tough to beat and if we go anywhere in the world we’ll fight all the way.”
A defeat for Northhampton would surely have ruled them out of contention for a play-off spot this season, but the bonus-point victory kept them in mix in eighth place and still eight points off with eight games remaining.
