Rampant Racing romp to top spot
Racing Metro 92 are through to the knock-out stages for the first time at the fifth attempt - and they did it in real bonus point style.
The French giants blew Saints away at Franklin's Gardens to claim priceless home advantage in the quarter-finals as the No 1 seeds.
The only unbeaten club in this year's elite European tournament did the damage with three tries in five whirlwind minutes each side of the break with powerhouse Wales centre Jamie Roberts banking the bonus point with a barnstorming try that ended with him walking off with the Man-of-the-Match award.
Saints - the 2000 champions - are still through to the quarters but after winning their last five home games against French opposition in this competition this was a real shock for home fans.
Not even a seventh try in this season's competition for George North could ease the Saints pain, Steven Myler off target with a golden penalty goal chance of opening the scoring when Racing took a scrum down with less than five minutes.
Another set piece ended in a Saints penalty - and words with Welsh referee Nigel Owens cost Racing an additional 10 metres as he marched them back - but the home side failed to capitalise at the line-out and let the Top 14 side off the hook again.
And worse came when Saints captain Dylan Hartley was sent to the sin bin for attempting a tackle while flat out on the ground, scrumhalf Maxime Machenaud punishing them on the scoreboard with the first points.
But home fans were left disappointed when Luther Burrell knocked on when trying to collect a clever George North kick ahead with the line beckoning, the chance lost and Racing coming strong at the other end with Saints forced into some desperate scrambling defence - and a mighty scrum effort.
But patience paid off for Racing as a superb build-up and keeping the ball alive produced a great try for Puma star Juan Imhoff.
Although there were no conversion points from Machenaud to rub salt into wounds that was still a real hammer blow for Saints on the stroke of half-time as Racing went eight points clear in the battle for group honours.
Ken Pisi had the Saints fans on their feet early in the second half with some mesmerising running - but they were let stunned when Racing hacked on a loose ball and Imhoff won the foot race with Myler for his second try in just a couple of minutes of action.
This time Machenaud converted and Saints were looking at a mountain to climb - and that rapidly became an Everest as fullback Benjamin Lapeyre stripped Burrell of possession for their third try.
Machenaud again added the extras as suddenly there was a 22-points gulf before a line-out and powerful maul opened up the way for scrumhalf Lee Dickson to send Wales wing wizard North hurtling over for his ninth tournament try.
That cut the deficit to 17 points and Saints would not have been disappointed to see wrecker-in-chief Imhoff depart clutching his right shoulder.
And Lapeyre soon joined him - although in his case just for 10 minutes out of the action - after being yellow carded for a deliberate knock-on as Saints stormed forward.
Magnificent work on the run by Welsh centre Roberts had the alarm bells ringing - and Roberts wrapped up the try bonus point with just over an hour gone as he forced his way over with a clutch of Saints defenders hanging on but unable to deny him, Roberts ending up as Man-of-the-Match.
The scorers
Try: North
Pen: Myler
Tries: Imhoff 2, Lapeyre, Roberts
Cons: Machenaud 2, Dambielle
Pens: Machenaud 2
Yellow cards: Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints, 13), Benjamin Lapeyre (Racing-Metro, 55)
Teams:
Northampton Saints: 15 James Wilson, 14 Ken Pisi, 13 George Pisi, 12 Luther Burrell, 11 George North, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson, 8 Samu Manoa, 7 Calum Clark, 6 Tom Wood, 5 Christian Day, 4 Sam Dickinson, 3 Salesi Ma'afu, 2 Dylan Hartley (captain), 1 Alex Corbisiero.
Replacements: 16 Mikey Haywood, 17 Alex Waller, 18 Gareth Denman, 19 Phil Dowson, 20 Teimana Harrison, 21 Kahn Fotuali'i, 22 Tom Stephenson, 23 Jamie Elliott.
Racing-Métro: 15 Benjamin Lapeyre, 14 Juan Imhoff, 13 Henry Chavancy, 12 Jamie Roberts, 11 Teddy Thomas, 10 Benjamin Dambielle, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Antonie Claassen, 7 Bernard le Roux, 6 Wenceslas Lauret, 5 Francois van der Merwe, 4 Luke Charteris, 3 Luc Ducalcon, 2 Dimitri Szarzewski, 1 Eddy Ben Arous.
Replacements: 16 Virgile Lacombe, 17 Julien Brugnaut, 18 Brian Mujati, 19 Juandre Kruger, 20 Camille Gerondeau, 21 Mike Phillips, 22 Johan Goosen, 23 Camille Chat.
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant referees: Gwyn Morris (Wales), Jon Mason (Wales)
TMO: Gareth Simmonds (Wales)
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