{"id":602519,"date":"2025-11-30T02:54:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/602519\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T02:54:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:54:27","slug":"first-minute-red-for-test-rookie-sees-northampton-well-beaten-by-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/602519\/","title":{"rendered":"First minute red for Test rookie sees Northampton well beaten by Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Northampton\u2019s unbeaten start to the season came to a shuddering halt as they were blown away 46-12 by impressive Bristol<\/a> at Ashton Gate.<\/p>\n

Saints lost Edoardo Todaro<\/a> to a first-minute red card and it was downhill all the way after that as Bristol ran in six tries.<\/p>\n

Scrum-half Kieran Marmion<\/a> scored two and Tom Jordan<\/a>, Kalaveti Ravouvou<\/a>, Aidan Boshoff<\/a> and Luka Ivanishvili<\/a> also crossed, with Sam Worsley<\/a> kicking five conversions and two penalties.<\/p>\n

JJ van der Mescht and Tom Litchfield<\/a> scored Northampton\u2019s tries, one of which Fin Smith converted.<\/p>\n

Saints made a disastrous start by losing newly-capped Italy<\/a> wing Todaro to an immediate red card.<\/p>\n

Todaro\u2019s dangerous challenge on Worsley while he was in the air left the referee with little alternative and Bristol soon capitalised when Marmion quickly took a tap penalty to dart over.<\/p>\n

Bristol soon scored another when Jordan ran a clever angle to collect a pass from James Williams<\/a> for an easy run-in before they produced the try of the game by bemusing the opposition with some splendid inter-passing.<\/p>\n

It culminated in Harry Thacker<\/a> bursting down the right touchline and, when the hooker was brought down, Marmion was on hand to pick up and score his second.<\/p>\n

Bears suffered a blow when wing Jack Bates<\/a> left the field with an injury to be replaced by Louis Rees-Zammit.<\/p>\n

But it did not slow the hosts\u2019 momentum as a thumping tackle by Benhard Janse van Rensburg<\/a> on Smith saw Ravouvou seize possession before running 45 metres to score.<\/p>\n

Northampton\u2019s miserable first half was complete when they conceded a fifth try from replacement Boshoff, who collected a well-timed pass from Worsley to leave Bristol with a 35-0 interval lead.<\/p>\n

Six minutes after the restart, Saints at last struck a blow when giant lock Van der Mescht forced his way over to reward their first period of pressure, but Worsley soon extended the home side\u2019s lead with a straightforward penalty.<\/p>\n

Saints, a more competitive side in the second half, scored a second from Litchfield after the centre won the race to collect a well-judged kick from George Furbank.<\/p>\n

Worsley added a second penalty for a match tally of 16 points before Ivanishvili finished off a driving line-out to emphasise Bristol\u2019s superiority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northampton\u2019s unbeaten start to the season came to a shuddering halt as they were blown away 46-12 by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-602519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115636395266695709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}