Hendy Hat-Trick as Eight-Try Northampton Hammer Pretoria Bulls

The young winger bagged a triple as the Saints secured maximum points from their first two Investec Champions Cup games with an eight-try thrashing of the Bulls.

Ollie Sleightholme scored two tries and Pollock secured the fourth try inside an hour as a dominant Saints team cut loose in the second half.

The visitors were within touching distance with the score 14-5 at the break but a yellow card to forward Tshakweni in the 53rd minute for a unnecessary trip proved decisive and they did not score a point in the second half.

England fly-half Fin Smith added 10 points with the boot as Saints went top of Pool Four on superior points difference from defending champions Bordeaux-Bègles with the two teams on 10 points.

The manner of this win, following a 35-27 victory on the road at Pau last week, means last season's runners-up Northampton could not have hoped for a better start as they look to improve on that in this campaign.

Pretoria's number ten Wolhuter failed with an early penalty before Saints opened the scoring when Pollock made a break before feeding Ollie Sleightholme who showed his pace to race clear to the try line.

But an error from Sleightholme let the Bulls back in as the ball was knocked on in the tackle, allowing Bulls wing Jacobs to kick on and show blistering pace of his own to score after 22 minutes.

Shortly after, Saints had their second as fast passing from Mitchell at the ruck base and then Fin Smith sent George Hendy over in the corner to make it fourteen to five at the half-time whistle.

Saints were on top in both ball and field position and were being aided from the opposition fly-half Wolhuter who failed to find touch with penalty kicks to reinvite pressure onto the visitors.

That told after 48 minutes when Fin Smith was again the architect, stepping inside to wrong-foot the onrushing defense before delivering a perfectly weighted left-footed kick over the line for Hendy to collect his second and Northampton's third score.

Bulls prop Alulutho Tshakweni was then shown a yellow card for a tripping offense on Iyogun. Tshakweni was adamant he had been responding to a trip momentarily before by Iyogun but the contact from the Saints replacement prop was ruled unintentional when looked at by the match officials.

Saints capitalized of having the extra man to clinch the bonus point through Pollock before Alex Coles and Sleightholme crossed as the hosts registered three scores in five frantic minutes.

Hendy wrapped up his hat-trick with twelve minutes left on the clock and Kemeny strolled in for the eighth try of an excellent day for Saints in the final minute.

Rerun of Last Year's Final Next for Saints

The top two teams in the pool will face off in a rematch of the previous season's final when the tournament returns in January as Saints travel to Bordeaux. The Saints then round off the group phase with a fixture at home against Scarlets on January 18th.

The Bulls, who have a single point from two matches, welcome Bristol Bears next before traveling to face Pau.

Line-ups

Northampton: Furbank; Sleightholme, Hutchinson, Dingwall, Hendy; F Smith, Mitchell; Fischetti, Wright, Davison, Coles, Van der Mescht, Kemeny, Pearson, Pollock

Replacements: R Smith, Iyogun, Kundiona, Munga, Prowse, Graham, James, Thame

Bulls: Williams; Petersen, Gans, Vorster, Jacobs; Wolhuter, Burger; Tshakweni, Van der Merwe, Smith, Wiese, Van Heerden, Coetzee, Ludwig, Louw

Replacements: Else, Sithole, Mchunu, Gumede, Carr, Papier, Johannes, Van Niekerk

Yellow card: Tshakweni (53)

Match Officials

Referee: Hollie Davidson (Sco)

Assistant referees: Rob McDowell (Sco) and Dave Sutherland (Sco)

TMO: Mike Adamson (Sco)