Gloucester better Northampton Saints 34-19 in Santi Carreras inspired performance
11,107 made their way to Kingsholm to watch Gloucester's bonus point victory
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Santi Carreras was massively influential at fly-half for Gloucester as the West Country side leapfrogged Northampton Saints in the Gallagher Premiership table with a 34-19 win at Kingsholm.
It took several minutes for this game in early December to heat up. We had been spoilt all week in the sporting world, with England notching up centuries for fun in Pakistan, while the World Cup in Qatar has provided plenty of upsets, and with Argentina’s round of 16 clash around the corner, Los Pumas’ Santi Carreras pulled off a masterclass at Kingsholm.
Wearing the fly-half jersey, the 24-year-old showed every ounce of his worth to his club. It began with some close calls for the Cherry and Whites, who turned the ball over twice in their own 22m.
Jack Singleton was the first Gloucester player to dot down, a break from the Wales wing Louis Rees-Zammit seeing the ball spread wide to Lewis Ludlow on the wing, the flanker in contact when he handed the ball back inside for his hooker to dot down.
Carreras slotted the conversion with relative ease, but after weathering an early storm Gloucester weren’t able to maintain their momentum. Northampton went route one, Paul Hill making hard carries into contact and full-back George Furbank even made inroads, swatting off Italy international Stephen Varney on a rampage towards the line.
That work ultimately opened up space out wide, the ball spread to England international Tommy Freeman who got his side off the mark. Freeman would have a second soon after, this time scoring on the right wing, it was direct carries towards the post that set the 21-year-old up, Gloucester at sea defensively as the back dove over.
It was from this point on Gloucester took real control. Carreras was at the heart of things, the playmaker the main threat in Chris Harris’ score, the home side playing quick ball following a lineout, Seb Atkinson finding his fly-half on a run that cut through the defence and finding Harris as Saints shirts tried to drag him down.
With their lead restored following the conversion, confidence was high. Pushing Northampton off their own scrum and then dealing with a hefty stoppage following injury to Singleton, Gloucester were handed a final opportunity to attack by virtue of a Fin Smith knock-on just inside his own 22m, the Saints fly-half also missing a relatively simple kick to end the half in what was a torrid close to the first-half for the 20-year-old.
Ben Morgan opted to pick from the base of the steady scrum, before finding his South American teammate on an arcing run and evading opposition attention before bagging the conversion.
Much like the first half, it was a slow start in the second period. Amongst other things, Jonny May kicked a ball right through the dead ball area, and it took until 20 minutes were left to play for either side to make significant headway.
Working their way into the Saints 22m, Lewis Ludlam infringed as Gloucester surged forward and the captain was shown yellow by Ian Tempest. Duly kicking to the corner, while Gloucester’s maul went nowhere, Northampton weren’t able to repel Fraser Balmain who crashed over.
Vying for a place in the top four, Gloucester continued to impress. Varney squeezed in a 50:22 and for all their possession in enemy territory eventually opted to kick for the posts, Carreras striking the ball over to give the hosts a 19-point lead.
With less than 10 minutes to play, Gloucester would make things hard for themselves. Blindside flanker Ruan Ackermann was sent to the sin bin for a deliberate knock-on, Saints driving forward and despite Atkinson having held the ball up, the writing was on the wall for Skivington’s team.
Eventually James Ramm would score for Northampton, the wing the beneficiary of quick Alex Mitchell thinking to dot down beneath the sticks. Before the game was up, the majestic Carreras would add another from the tee, the Argentine benefitting from another strong scrum and Northampton having been marched back 10 meters for backchat.
The result is in many ways the perfect birthday present for Skivington, who celebrated his 40th birthday on Saturday. It’s a result made all the sweeter after a run of indifferent form from the since, who hadn’t won in the Premiership since the end of October.
“They are an outstanding attacking team, they are the best in the league, so we knew they’d play wide to wide and early on their caught us a couple of times,” Skivington said.
“I think we were a little bit disjointed, but we corrected that at half-time. I thought we were brave Santi was great at 10, we were brave in the way we played and we want to play and after a disappointing autumn international period for us in the Premiership, I think we needed that.”
After receiving the player of the match award for his exploits, Santi Carreras’ performance could not be ignored. Signed as a full-back and often played on the wing by his club, the Puma became his country’s starting fly-half in The Rugby Championship, and now following the Autumn Nations Series has been asked to do the same by Skivington.
Putting in a masterful display in spite of his relative inexperience in the role, the 24-year-old’s involvement was the difference between the two sides as Gloucester overtook their opponents in the league table.
“Santi came back and did two days with us last week and we put him at 10 because he had been playing 10, but he hasn’t trained a day at 10 pre last week and I think this week he really knuckled down and understood the system from that role, rather than from deep where he has been playing before,” Skivington said.
“He is a world class player, he is very, very diligent in what he does. It’s not luck anything he does, and I think the boys really fed off that and he put us on the front foot.”
