Plenty of club league records fell during Saturday’s 96-3 win over Sedgley Park including the number of tries scored in a match (14) and total number of points from an individual (36 by Bruce Reihana). When he crossed the line for the fifth time Diggin also passed Chris Ashton and Sean Lamont, who had each scored four tries in a single game.

But he played down his own achievement, saying that he was just finishing off the hard work put in by the other 14 men on the field.

“It was all down to the forwards, who gave us a platform,” Diggin said. “The front row, Dylan, Soane and Chris Budgen, played well and the ball was on a plate for Sharky and Los. A nice dry pitch helps and most of my tries were from five metres out!

“No one was going off on their own. Everybody was singing off the same hymn sheet. Bruce was telling us to keep our heads. We just know the job’s not done after 20 minutes. There’s another hour to go and it was good that in the second half we put our foot down and were pretty ruthless.

“It’s been a while since I got a couple so to get five all at once has broken the drought! It’s nice to have something like that but it wouldn’t have happened if the backs and forwards all did their part. I just finished them off.”

Saints earned the bonus point inside the first 20 minutes. But they were on the back foot until first half injury time as Sedgley Park put pressure on the home try line. Having to work hard in defence and not conceding a try was also a sign that the Saints were taking the visitors seriously, says Diggin.

“We did our homework on Sedgley Park, which we do on all the teams. We give them all respect. We put into play what we practiced, which we’ve been doing over the past few weeks.

“For the whole 80 minutes they had no interest in taking a backwards step. There were here to play and they put some nice passages of play together in that 20 minutes. We had to work hard in defence which is good as we didn’t concede a try.

“We’ve worked hard on our defence over the last few weeks. We set ourselves those standards. In the Premiership if you give someone a try most of the time it will be seven points and we don’t want to give seven points to anyone. The try line is sacred and we don’t want to let anyone across it, no matter who it is.”

On Saturday the Saints travel to Doncaster for the first of a double-header in the EDF Energy National Trophy and National League One. Diggin says that the win over Sedgley Park is now forgotten as the players look ahead to the Knights.

“Next week is massive. If we win this game we’re in the quarter finals. It will take a big performance and Jim and Dorian will make sure we’re ready.”