Champions Cup: Brave Northampton beaten by Bordeaux’s power

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Champions Cup: Brave Northampton beaten by Bordeaux’s power

Pollock didn’t play badly. None of the Northampton players did.

The 20-year-old made more metres than any other forward on the pitch. He turned over one ball in the shadow of his own posts and was a key part of a heroic rearguard.

For much of the second half, Northampton defended their line like they had been backed up to a cliff edge.

At the other end, Pollock twice streaked away for scores that had the Principality’s rafters rattling and threatened to turn Saints’ resistance into all-out rebellion.

On both occasions though, the overworked television match official stepped in to rule them out.

The scores didn’t stand. And by the final whistle, on the scene of their sucker-punch final defeat by Leinster in 2011, neither did Saints.

Their route to victory was always a thin and perilous one.

Captain Fraser Dingwall had explained earlier in the week that his side needed to keep the tempo high and ball moving to tire out Bordeaux’s heavy brigade up front.

He admitted though that doing so flirted with another danger.

Because Bordeaux’s backline, marshalled by the quicksilver Mathieu Jalibert and laced with the pace of Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey, is the most dangerous in the competition off turnover ball and in broken field.

No opposition had managed to strike that balance successfully against them so far.

Bordeaux scored an average of 42 points a game in the knockout stages. They averaged more than eight tries a game in the pools. Seven games, seven resounding wins.

No-one had even got close.

Saints though did get close.

After a helter-skelter first half, they were level at 20-20. A combination of a fast start, a couple of glitchy kicks from Jalibert, some doughty defence and a readiness to go toe-to-toe with Bordeaux for ambition bought them parity.

When Pollock bolted through for a score that never was early in the second half, it felt like the underdogs might have their day.

Bordeaux though had come prepared.

Northampton’s attempt to drain their batteries was foiled by a Bordeaux bench buzzing with power and six forwards. As they unloaded their replacements, Northampton were squeezed back into their own half.

Saints’ plan was also undermined by a lack of luck and discipline.

Injuries to James Ramm and George Furbank in the first five minutes robbed them of two of their back three and some fluidity.

Early in the second half a yellow card for replacement Ed Prowse, for going high on Yoram Moefana, put them on the back foot.

Marius Jonker’s South African tones regularly interrupted play as well as the TMO helped out with hairline calls, giving Bordeaux time to catch their breath.

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