‘A phenom’: Freeman steals the show with four-try haul for Northampton

Northampton Director of Rugby Phil Dowson described Tommy Freeman as a “phenom” after the England wing stole the show in his side’s 43-31 victory over Saracens.

A lot of pre-match focus was on Sarries’ teenage sensation Noah Caluori, but it was an established international that seized the attention as Freeman ran in four tries to help Saints maintain their unbeaten record in the Gallagher Prem.

They had to come back from 26-17 down to do so after letting a 17-0 lead slip, but it is they who lead the standings by six points.

Dowson said: “Tommy does so many things so well, and I think he looked physical, fast, skilful, he took the ball in the air beautifully and was in the right place.

“An outstanding performance from him and he’s just a phenom at the moment.

“We’ve had some good starts in this last block and sides have come back in, and we know with the quality that Saracens have they’re going to come back and have periods of momentum.

“We maybe didn’t manage it as well as we’d like to, but at the same time that was a proper game, and there’s going to be ebbs and flows in there.

“There’s obviously a discipline issue – I think the penalty count at one point was 15-2, a yellow card again (for Tom Pearson) and we had to manage that eight minutes at the start of the second half.

“But I thought the bench had a good impact.”

Tries from George Hendy, Pearson and Freeman put Northampton ahead, only for Saracens to score 26 unanswered points through scores by Fergus Burke, Jack Bracken, Juan Martin Gonzalez and Hugh Tizard.

But Saints fought back as Pearson scored his second and Freeman completed his haul, with Max Malins momentarily giving Sarries some late hope.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said: “The first 20-odd minutes we were clearly second best.

“They had a lot of the ball, winning lots of collisions, getting speed of ball and looking really good, and we struggled to stop them, to be honest.

“We did mount a bit of a fightback, which we should be proud of and to go in leading at half-time was good, and they were down to 14 men at the start of that [second] half.

“We had a chance and we took a chance and gave ourselves a bit of a lead, but I didn’t really enjoy how it played out from there.

“We threw a long pass, they intercepted and all of a sudden the tide turned quick, and if we want to be the team we want to be, to concede two or three tries quickfire, like we did, it’s not what we want to be like.”