Flanker Ben Lewitt returns to the 22 after being absent with England’s Commonwealth Games sevens travelling squad, and Mark Easter comes on to the bench to provide five forwards replacements.

Saints will be hoping to secure a win against the West Country side after the disappointment of last weekend’s loss to Worcester Warriors in the European Challenge Cup. There are just 40 tickets left for this game, so Saturday – KO 3pm – should be Saints’ 10th sell-out.

Head coach Paul Grayson said: “We made mistakes last week. The fact Worcester scored five tries was very disappointing. We made some technical errors and we did not show quite as much enthusiasm as in previous weeks. I do not want to make any excuses but the boys have worked hard since Christmas in putting a run of results together and the big game against Newcastle the week before really took it out of us.”

He added: “Bath’s resilience last week against Leicester was phenomenal. Both teams (Bath and Saints) play a bit and Bath have changed the way they play under Brian Ashton. I have worked with Brian and I know how he likes to play and we like to play the same way.”

Saints centre Jon Clarke added: “Worcester was a disappointing game but hopefully that was a one-off. We are looking forward to playing Bath and all our home games after that. The guys are really up for this week. We have been working hard.”

Northampton Saints

15 BRUCE REIHANA (co-capt)
14 SEAN LAMONT
13 Jon Clarke
12 DAVID QUINLAN
11 BEN COHEN
10 CARLOS SPENCER
9 MARK ROBINSON
1 TOM SMITH
2 STEVE THOMPSON (co-capt)
3 Pat Barnard
4 Damien Browne
5 Matt Lord
6 PAUL TUPAI
7 SAM HARDING
8 Daniel Browne

16 Dan Richmond
17 Chris Budgen
18 DAVID GERARD
19 Ben Lewitt
20 Mark Easter
21 Johnny Howard
22 Robbie Kydd