Famous Fixtures | Sarries thrash the Saints at HQ (2nd September 2017)
Saracens kicked off their 2017/18 campaign in style with a demolition of Northampton Saints at Allianz Stadium. A hat-trick from Sean Maitland was the highlight as the Men in Black kicked off their season in the best way possible.
Read the full match report from the day:
European champions Saracens began their 2017-18 Premiership campaign in style with a convincing nine-try thrashing of Northampton Saints in Twickenham.
Sean Maitland scored a first-half hat-trick with further tries coming from Brad Barritt, Richard Wigglesworth, Alex Lozowski and Vincent Koch.
Schalk Brits and Ben Spencer added more tries for Saracens in the second half.
Lewis Ludlam scored for Northampton with Tom Wood also crossing twice, but Saints missed out on a bonus point.
It only took Saracens 11 minutes to make the breakthrough, which came with a simple score from Barritt after Koch had forced his way past the Saints defence.
Wigglesworth finished off a team move a minute later, before Maitland grabbed his first try after a thrilling cross-field move and Lozowski secured the four-try bonus-point after only 29 minutes when he finished off after fine work from the excellent Brits.
The 36-year-old South African, who retired from rugby at the end of the season, was again involved in the build-up to try five as he showed his skills before timing a pass perfectly for Maitland to go over for his second.
His third try, and Saracens' sixth, came in the 34th minute when he benefited from sloppy Saints play with Koch powering over just before the break and Saracens holding a 41-3 lead at half-time.
Northampton performed better at the start of the second half as Ludlam crossed inside four minutes of the restart, but Saracens scored again soon after with Brits getting a well-deserved try.
Tom Wood scored twice for Saints but any thoughts of a fightback were ended with Saracens' ninth try, courtesy of replacement Spencer, to seal a fantastic performance from the European champions.
The only negative for Saracens was an injury for lock George Kruis, who was part of the Lions side for the Test series with New Zealand, but went off after only 15 minutes after struggling with a foot injury.
Saracens boss Mark McCall on Schalk Brits:Â "He's Peter Pan. He's an explosive athlete and his athleticism hasn't gone away. His body is sore after games, but it was a stunning performance today - he was incredible.
"This is his ninth season at the club and he's been a star from day one. He seems to save all of his best performances for Twickenham. He's a phenomenal player and hopefully we can give him a really good send off this year."
