Northampton outgun Bath 71-48 in 18-try Prem thriller

Northampton Saints beat Bath 71-48 in an 18-try shootout that turned England's top rugby union division into a track meet.

The Saints scored 11 tries to Bath's seven. The 119-point aggregate is the second-highest in English top-flight history, according to BBC Sport.

It sits behind only one game. That was also Northampton's doing, a 94-33 win over Bristol in May.

For anyone new to union, a try is worth five points and comes from touching the ball down over the opposition tryline. Add the kicked conversion afterwards and one score can quickly become seven. That maths explains how this one ran away so fast.

The contrast with history is stark. Ten seasons ago, Northampton hosted Bath in round three and won 24-6 to end Bath's unbeaten start to the season.

That day Northampton scored four tries through Courtney Lawes, George North and David Ribbans, who crossed twice. Bath managed only two penalties from the boot of Rhys Priestland.

The comparable round of fixtures in 2017 produced 26 tries across six matches, an average of 4.33 per game. This time around, the league produced 50 tries across five Prem games, an average of 10 per match.

The first two rounds averaged 9.3 tries per game. That is the highest-scoring start to an English top-flight campaign since Opta began gathering the statistic in 2007-08.

What makes this stand out is how routine huge scores have become. Five of the 10 English top-flight games to breach the 100-point barrier have come since the start of the 2023-24 season.

Defence still wins matches, though. Saracens beat previously unbeaten Bristol 30-7 to underline the other end of the game.

Saracens, led in defence by coach Adam Powell, are built on line speed and tackling in numbers. At the time of that win, only Gloucester had conceded fewer points in the league.

Bristol arrived at StoneX Stadium without Pedro Rubiolo, AJ MacGinty and Steven Luatua. The club rested the trio over concerns about their bodies holding up on the artificial surface in north London, which plays firmer and faster than grass.

Northampton head coach Sam Vesty will take the win, but 48 points conceded gives him plenty to work on. Bath leave with nothing but sore legs and a small place in the record books.