Northampton Saints are targeting a ‘performance to be proud of’ in Friday night’s showdown with Bristol Bears at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens, according to Immanuel Iyogun.
The long-serving loosehead prop stressed that the mindset remains unchanged, despite the men in Black, Green and Gold entering the Gallagher PREM Round 16 encounter off the back of a disappointing East Midlands derby defeat to Leicester Tigers.
“Our aim is always to have a performance we are proud of,” said the 25-year-old. “We cannot always control whether we win or not. To be honest, we back ourselves that if we perform well, typically it means we’ve put ourselves in the best place to win.
“We don’t really look outside in terms of the league table or who wins where — we just focus on our performance and what we can control.”
Iyogun moved to within three appearances of a half-century for the club in the 41-17 defeat at Mattioli Woods Welford Road last weekend.
Despite the setback, Saints remain top of the table and have their destiny in their own hands as they seek to secure a home PREM playoff semi-final for the second time in three seasons.
“Perspective is very important,” Iyogun added. “It’s about zooming out and saying things aren’t that bad — things are never as good or as bad as you think. If you’d asked at the start of the season whether we’d take being top of the league with three weeks to go, we absolutely would. But we wouldn’t have taken that individual performance, so it’s important we don’t fixate on it. We’ve performed plenty of times this season; it’s about balance.”
He continued: “It was tough to take on Monday morning, but we’ve licked our wounds now and gone into the preview for this weekend.
“It’s about going into this week knowing last week wasn’t good enough and seeing if we can improve upon that.
“In sport you have to have a short memory — you can’t hold onto things because they weigh you down. But on the flip side, you have to remember the lessons you’ve learned from the games you’ve played.”
The visiting Bears currently lead the chasing pack looking to break into the top four, and defeat on Friday could end their hopes of progressing to the knockout stages — though Iyogun does not believe that context will influence how Saints approach the challenge ahead.
“Bristol are always dangerous. They play to space and want to exploit you — that hasn’t changed. They haven’t grown wings because they need to get into the top four. We recognise that, we understand the intensity they’re going to bring, and it’s important for us to realise the pressure is on them. All we need to do is perform, and then we’ll be in a good place.”