\n<\/p>\n
Northampton hurtled into the game, pouncing on a Bordeaux spill, ploughing upfield and crossing as Coles, who passed a late fitness test to start, threaded the ball through a tangle of limbs to ground inside two minutes.<\/p>\n
Saints supporters were still in full cry though as their fruitful opening turned sour.<\/p>\n
Wing James Ramm limped out of the fray as Fin Smith lined up the conversion.<\/p>\n
Full-back George Furbank, playing only his second game since breaking his arm in December, followed shortly after on a stretcher after catching an accidental knee in the face as opposite number Romain Buros attempted to hurdle over him in pursuit of a loose ball.<\/p>\n
Ollie Sleightholme and Tom Litchfield were summoned off the bench, but the subsequent rejig shunted England wing Tommy Freeman to full-back and scrambled some of Saints’ backline understanding.<\/p>\n
Once play restarted following Furbank’s injury, Damian Penaud sauntered in for his 13th try of Bordeaux’s continental campaign to pull his side back within two points.<\/p>\n
Shortly after, Louis Bielle-Biarrey looked to have put his fellow wing over again, only to have the score chalked off for a forward pass.<\/p>\n
That call apart, Saints felt they were getting little from referee Nika Amashukeli with Smith called for a marginal knock-on and Freeman seemingly blocked off by second row Adam Coleman as he pursued a kick ahead.<\/p>\n
There was no argument about Bordeaux’s second try however. <\/p>\n
After the ball went to ground in Northampton’s 22m, Mathieu Jalibert’s twinkling feet evaded five Saints defenders before the France international pumped a basketball-style pass out of the tackle and Coleman crashed over in the corner for 12-7 to the French side after 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Saints slowly recovered from the onslaught with Smith moulding some shape into his reordered backline.<\/p>\n
A couple of penalties from the fly-half edged Northampton back to 15-13. <\/p>\n
Penaud continued to bristle with danger though and, after spilling forward close to the line on one occasion, he dived over amid the chaos of Jalibert’s botched and regathered grubber.<\/p>\n
Northampton refused to be shifted from the contest and, with Freeman and Mahamadou Diaby both in the sin-bin and the game swinging wildly from end to end, Coles went over in the final play of the half after Sleightholme had bumped off a tackler.<\/p>\n
That try, and Smith’s dead-eyed conversion, levelled the half-time scoreline at 20-20 after a breathless first period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n