Narbonne are currently in 10th place in the French championship, the Top 14, and arrive at Franklin’s Gardens leading pool one of the European Challenge Cup with eight points having won their opening games against Bristol and Viadana. Saints have six points having claimed a bonus-point win over Viadana and a losing bonus point against Bristol at the Memorial Stadium.

Hooker Steve Thompson has shaken off a calf injury for Saturday’s game and Jon Clarke returns to the starting line-up having recovered from a virus. Colin Noon comes in for Pat Barnard at tighthead prop as the latter is not registered for this stage of the competition.

Director of rugby Budge Pountney said: “We have to win this game. In fact we have to win both the next two games as I believe we will need to win all our remaining pool games to stand a chance of qualifying. When we won the Heineken Cup in 2000 we only lost one game along the way, so that’s our target.

“We have seen a fair bit of video footage of Narbonne and both Daniel Browne and David Gerard have played against them. They are very physical up front, they have talented backs and they have got a good goal-kicker. We have got to be disciplined and match them physically. We have also got to build pressure, that’s the big thing for us. We have got to be a bit more patient than we have been.”

Northampton Saints

15 BRUCE REIHANA (capt)
14 SEAN LAMONT
13 Jon Clarke
12 Rhodri Davies
11 BEN COHEN
10 CARLOS SPENCER
9 MARK ROBINSON
1 Chris Budgen
2 STEVE THOMPSON
3 Colin Noon
4 Damien Browne
5 DAVID GERARD
6 Ben Lewitt
7 SAM HARDING
8 Daniel Browne

Replacements: TBC