Saints will return ‘firing’ from break period, says James

Scrum-half Tom James is confident that Northampton Saints will return from the Six Nations break fired up to build on their sensational run of form.

The men in Black, Green and Gold stretched their unbroken sequence of wins to ten with a 38-13 victory over Newcastle Falcons in Saturday’s cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens match.

Phil Dowson’s side now head into an eight-week period without a Gallagher Premiership game sitting seven points clear at the top of the league and unbeaten in Europe, with a mouth-watering Investec Champions Cup Round of 16 clash with Munster to look forward to in April.

“You put targets on at the start of the season,” said James. “If you’d have said you’d go into this break a few points clear at the top you would’ve absolutely taken that. Credit to the boys, we're on some brilliant form.

“It’s been a very long block, 20-something weeks, so the boys are feeling it. There’s a lot of lads who are feeling it who have played a lot of rugby.  Your body is going to thank you for it [the break].

“On the flip side, we have so much momentum at the moment, you feel like if we keep going, we are going to keep winning. It is what it is, I am sure we will have a nice break and we will be firing when we come back after the Six Nations block.”

James has appeared in 14 of Saints’ 20 games in all competitions this season, and scored his second try in as many games with a crucial finish early into the second half against Falcons.

It helped settle some nerves after a first half that lacked fluency as Newcastle threatened to gain their first league win of the season and become the first visiting side to win at the Gardens in more than three months.

Further scores from Ollie Sleightholme and Juarno Augustus built on the first-half efforts from Courtney Lawes, Sam Matavesi and a penalty try to secure maximum points for the hosts.

James added: “You look at the scoreboard, it’s a 38-13 win and we’re coming off the field feeling quite frustrated which can only be a good thing.

“We probably didn’t exit that well and move the game up the field in that first half how we wanted to, and that invited a bit of pressure.

“Credit to Newcastle, they stuck at it and really went after our breakdown and slowed us down a bit. But it’s still a five-point win, we still put some good rugby out there, so lots of positives.”