You can play all the classy rugby you want, you can be leading the table with a few matches to play, but certain elemental truths still apply. One of them is that if you find yourself overpowered up front away from home in a sold-out East Midlands derby, you will be blown away.
Northampton could have secured themselves a place in the playoffs here if they had won with a bonus point, but – how to put this – they did not. In a ferocious atmosphere, records tumbled as Leicester claimed that bonus-point win to move third, within one point of Bath, who play Exeter on Sunday, and five shy of Saints. They scored more points than they ever have in this fixture; there were more cards than there have ever been in this fixture. Maybe not more aggro than ever, but there was plenty of that too.
