Northampton Saints return back to winning ways

Northampton Saints 24 - 5 Sale Sharks, Franklin's Garden
Scorecard

Northampton Saints have managed to end their four-match losing streak spread across all competitions with a comfortable 24-5 victory over Sale Sharks at Franklin's Gardens on Friday.

This is Northampton Saints' fifth win in 11 games and have taken them to the sixth position in the table while the 19-point defeat meant Sale Sharks languish at the 10th position.

Full-back Ben Foden opened the account as early as in the fifth minute when he crossed over allowing fly-half Stephen Myler to add the extras.

The score became 14-0 soon when England international Tom Wood scored a 28th minute followed by Myler's second conversion.

The problems compounded for Sale Sharks when scrum-half Mike Phillips was sin-binned in the 38th minute as they ended the first half with a trail of 14 points.

A 57th minute penalty from Myler stretched Northampton Saints' lead to 17 points but Sale Sharks made a brief comeback into the game when their latest rugby league convert Denny Solomona scored a try on his Premiership debut.

Centre Luther Burrell capped off the game with the third try for Northampton Saints in the final minute and Myler's conversion completed a 24-5 win for the home side. They had a chance to score a bonus point but Nic Groom's two tries were disallowed by TMO rightly.

Northampton Saints rugby director Jim Mallinder could not hide his disappointment of missing on a bonus point.

"We started well for a change and attacked with accuracy.

"It's disappointing we didn't get a bonus point as we needed Nic Groom to score one of the two tries that were disallowed by the TMO.

"We've got Gloucester next week and then Bristol at home. These are games we are capable of winning and if we do we can move up the table."