TOMMY FREEMAN’S hat-trick helped Northampton secure a place in the Premiership play-offs with a 65-26 thumping of Newcastle on Saturday.
The Saints scored 10 tries in total during an extremely open contest at Franklin’s Gardens as they reached the semi-finals for the first time in three years.
Northampton face old rivals Leicester in the last four next weekend, while Saracens will host defending champions Harlequins.
“Two months ago I think we were sitting eighth or ninth and a long way away from looking fourth,” said Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd.
“We talked about the fact we were probably playing knock-out football and we’ve managed to just sneak into that top four.”
Leicester guaranteed top spot in the table by seeing off Wasps 20-10 at Welford Road to complete a perfect record at home in the regular season.
Gloucester missed out on the postseason despite thrashing a much-changed Saracens 54-7.
A record crowd of nearly 15,000 at Sandy Park saw Exeter edge a 13-try thriller 47-38 over Harlequins.
However, even with the bonus point, Exeter still finished seventh in the table, the first time they have missed out on a play-off spot since 2015.
Bath – where departing Munster coach, Johann van Graan, will end up, were condemned to a bottom-of-the-table finish as they suffered a 43-27 defeat to Worcester.
English Premiership table after Saturday’s matches (played, won, drawn, lost, points for, points against, bonus points, total points):
Leicester 24 20 0 4 726 452 14 94
Saracens 24 17 1 6 769 509 17 87
Harlequins 24 15 0 9 647 554 20 80
Northampton 24 14 0 10 764 639 19 75
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Gloucester 24 13 1 10 685 525 19 73
Sale 24 12 3 9 559 495 14 70
Exeter 24 13 0 11 584 534 17 69
London Irish 24 9 5 10 660 666 17 63
Wasps 24 11 1 12 614 600 14 60
Bristol 24 8 0 16 573 718 16 48
Worcester 24 6 1 17 451 814 9 35
Newcastle 24 6 1 17 436 660 8 34
Bath 24 5 1 18 461 763 10 34
Note: Top 4 qualify for post-season play-offs
