Ten years on from the fake capsule furore and again Harlequins will be spitting blood. Heading towards a first win in four Premiership matches that would have done wonders for their play-off hopes, they were stung by Alex Mitchell’s 78th-minute try and James Grayson’s nerveless conversion.
It was just reward for Northampton’s perseverance – not to mention their faith in youth – but Harlequins will be furious at how they let this one slip through their fingers.
It had been a pretty desperate match until Harlequins, leading 19-13, missed touch when clearing their lines and with the clock ticking down. Even then, Alex Dombrandt had chased hard and tackled Grayson, who had fielded Sam Hidalgo-Clyne’s kick but the 21-year-old Mitchell picked up from the base of the ruck, threw a glorious dummy with Cobus Reinach on his right and sped away to score.
His fellow replacement Grayson, just 20, had plenty still to do to win the game for Northampton – Dan Biggar was still on the pitch but hobbling with an achilles injury – but squeezed the ball between the posts with 30 seconds left.
It is a key win for Northampton, who move up to fifth, four points behind Harlequins.
“We are gutted, we had the game under control, [having] fought our way back into it,” said Harlequins’ head of rugby, Paul Gustard. “To lead by six points with 90 seconds on the clock is hard to take.”
Jack Clifford’s second-half try and 14 points from Marcus Smith had appeared enough for Harlequins to claim a scrappy game but this was the kind of game when Danny Care is badly missed. With his authority they might just have been home and dry before the late drama.
Harlequins also had to contend with season-ending injuries to their wingers Nathan Earle (knee) and Cadan Murley (dislocated elbow) while the Saints lost George Furbank, Piers Francis and Ahsee Tuala prematurely. Such was the injury rate that the match lacked any sort of rhythm, The first half was 58 minutes as a result, but low on quality.
Northampton had the better of it, despite playing into the fierce wind, and led 13-6 at the interval with Tuala scoring the only try of the half. It was a rare moment to savour, with Rory Hutchinson making the initial burst before the ball was worked to Tuala on the right. Dan Biggar nailed the conversion to give the Saints a 10-3 lead after he and Marcus Smith had exchanged penalties.
On 15 minutes came the first lengthy stoppage. Play was halted for eight minutes before Furbank was taken off on a stretcher after an accidental collision with Ben Tapuai in mid-air. Four minutes later and Northampton, who lost four players to injury last Sunday, were without Courtney Lawes and Paul Hill after they clashed heads, though they did return to the fray. Smith had trimmed the deficit to four by then but Biggar added another penalty before Earle was taken off on a stretcher after an arcing run was brought to an end by Francis’s last-ditch tackle.
Francis lasted four minutes of the second half due to a knee injury. Harlequins, far improved after the break, pulled level at 13-13 with Kyle Sinckler playing the killer pass to Clifford. Two Smith penalties had appeared enough for Harlequins, despite losing Murley after another lengthy stoppage, but Hidalgo-Clyne’s clearance failed to find touch and the final word was Northampton’s.
“I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to peg that back,” said Northampton’s director of rugby, Chris Boyd. “We’re very happy with the result, not terribly happy with the performance but at this stage of the year you take every gift you can get.”
