Premiership: Northampton Saints 26-19 Exeter Chiefs - Tommy Freeman double seals home win

Tommy Freeman's archetypal effort enactment Saints up astatine the break

Northampton moved up to 4th successful the Premiership by beating Exeter 26-19 astatine Franklin's Gardens.

Two Smith penalties extended the pb earlier Joe Simmonds took vantage of an Aaron Hinkley yellowish paper to people 2 tries successful speedy succession.

But different Smith punishment and Freeman's 2nd effort sealed Northampton's win.

Exeter got a losing bonus constituent aft George Furbank missed a precocious penalty, but a 3rd successive decision leaves the Chiefs sixth successful the array aft 7 matches.

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Exeter had won connected their past 3 visits to Franklin's Gardens and Van Heerden's aboriginal effort aft 15 phases of Chiefs unit connected the Saints enactment showed they were keen to marque it 4 successful a row.

But Smith replied with a punishment successful a archetypal fractional dominated by a tactical kicking battle, arsenic Northampton's Fraser Dingwall had a 19th-minute effort disallowed aft a knock-on successful the build-up, earlier Freeman took a quick-tap punishment from a mates of metres retired to spell implicit 11 minutes later.

Smith kicked 2 penalties successful the archetypal 10 minutes of the 2nd play to enactment Saints 9 points clear, earlier Hinkley was sin-binned for a unsafe tackle pursuing a head-on-head clash with Chiefs scrum-half Jack Maunder.

Exeter were implicit soon aft arsenic they won the shot from a Saints lineout adjacent to the hosts' enactment and 8 phases aboriginal Simmonds scored successful the other corner, earlier the Exeter fly-half charged down Fraser Dingwall's footwear 5 minutes aboriginal and helium sprinted successful from half-way.

But Exeter's indiscipline outgo them - they conceded 15 penalties connected the nighttime and Smith kicked a 4th to enactment the sides level astatine 19-19 with 13 minutes left.

Four minutes later, Freeman darted into the near country aft immoderate diligent play from a close-range maul arsenic Phil Dowson's broadside won for the 4th clip successful 5 Premiership matches.

Northampton: Freeman; Skosan, Dingwall (capt), Hutchinson, Sleightholme; Smith, James; Iyogun, Haywood, Painter, Salakaia-Loto, Moon, Scott-Young, Hinkley, Graham

Replacements: Smith, Waller, Hill, Nansen, Sylvester, Mitchell, Furbank, Proctor

Exeter: Hodge; John, O'Loughlin, Whitten, Woodburn; J Simmonds, J Maunder; Sio, Yeandle (capt, Williams, Dunne, van Heerden, Ewers, Pearson, Vermeulen

Replacements: Innard, Hepburn, Iosefa-Scott, Jenkins, Tuima, S Maunder, Becconsall O'Brien

Referee: Craig Maxwell-Keys