Burrell sets tone for Saints
Northampton Saints Director of Rugby Jim Mallinder heaped praise on Luther Burrell, after the England centre had a big hand in clinching a dramatic 23-19 victory over Leicester Tigers.
In a hot-tempered affair at Franklin's Gardens the Premiership leaders were down to 14 men after just a quarter of an hour, captain Dylan Hartley shown a red card for striking Matt Smith.
Minutes later the hosts were behind, courtesy of a penalty try, but Leicester Tigers didn't have it all their own way.
A couple of Stephen Myler penalties kept them in the hunt and Alex Waller scored after the break to hand them an unlikely leads.
Niki Goneva hit back before Ben Foden once again handed Northampton the lead, only for Goneva's second of the match to turn the game on its head once more.
However, replacement Jamie Elliott popped up in the dying seconds to secure a famous triumph after powerful running from Burrell had taken Northampton deep into opposition territory.
"I thought Luther Burrell was outstanding," said Mallinder.
"After 20 minutes we said we were still going to take them on and what we needed from Luther was to stay strong and on his feet and he did that brilliantly.
"At half-time Tom Wood said 'let's do it for Dylan'.
"It was a tremendous, spirited performance. Not just relying on spirit and guts but also a lot of technical and tactical work."
Meanwhile, Leicester boss Richard Cockerill conceded his side were simply second best on the day despite their numerical advantage.
"I'm frustrated with how we managed that second half," he said.
"We got what we deserved.
"You have to control that field position and get that forward pack into the right areas of the field so we can have opportunities to create attacks.
"We were defensively poor. We were too narrow. It will be interesting on Monday morning when we look back and see a side with one less back creating opportunities.
"Saints outplayed us. They took advantage of our naivety in defence. We seemed to go AWOL at times in defence."