Academy coach Jake Sharp praised Northampton Saints for sticking to their processes as they claimed their first win of the Premiership Rugby Cup campaign against Cambridge Rugby.
Saints ran in eight tries at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens to seal a 55-5 victory in Round 2 of the Cup competition, with youngsters Toby Thame and Henry Pollock both claiming a brace of scores.
Tom Seabrook, Archie McParland, Will Glister and George Hendy also crossed the whitewash in the clash, but it was the way the men in Black, Green and Gold stuck to their gameplan that impressed Sharp the most.
“We’re really happy with the result,” said Sharp. “We had a fair bit of learning from last week’s game at Ealing around our physicality and it was really good to see that put onto the pitch.
“It was good to see some of our young lads going well again, and rolling a few of the more senior lads out for their first game as well.
“But it’s really pleasing when we stick to our process, when all the stuff we’ve been practicing day in day out comes through. That was the challenge for us this week, to stick to that.”
Jake Sharp, Academy Coach
And for Sharp, Saints’ defensive efforts were just as important as their try-scoring – with Northampton conceding just one score to their Championship guests, a feat Sharp credited to incoming coach Lee Radford and his work to improve Northampton’s defence.
Sharp added: “We were a little bit loose in the middle twenty minutes of that first half but we were also really physical, really aggressive with our attacking rugby and delivered a really strong defensive performance too which is a great result.
“We’ve got to have pride in that defence, we’ve got to show it to the supporters and show it to ourselves that we can do it. Lee coming in has been excellent and he’s really driving the group forwards with that. We’ve just got to keep that up as we go on with the rest of the season.”
Having worked with Northampton’s Academy since joining the Club in 2019, Sharp was particularly pleased to see several of Saints’ younger stars performance at senior level.
He continued: “It’s great to see the younger lads performing, for me from a personal perspective. Seeing someone like Will Glister playing his fourth or fifth senior game, or Henry Pollock doing some really good things, or Archie [McParland] moving around really well as well as a young nine. We’ve got a group with some real potential there.”
But Saints won’t have long to dwell on their opening win of the season, as a trip to fellow Gallagher Premiership side Bristol Bears awaits this Saturday when the Cup pool stages reach the halfway point. And with Saints’ Pool D opposition Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights set to face off in Round 3, the trip to Ashton Gate will prove all-important if the team are to climb the Pool table.
“Our approach won’t change in terms of gameplan,” said Sharp. “It’s a long old season with 20 odd games to go so we have to manage that as a group, which we’ll continue to do on the training field as well as on gameday.
“We’ll probably rotate a few of the younger boys out as they’ve had quite a lot of game exposure now and we’ll get a few more of the senior lads in but it will be a very similar group going to Bristol with the same plan. And hopefully we’ll see a lot of the same processes that went well today.”
