Saints will be ‘ready to fire’ after Bristol loss, says Lewis Ludlam

Northampton Saints will be ‘ready to fire’ against Saracens according to captain Lewis Ludlam, following the disappointment of their loss to Bristol Bears.

Eight weeks after their last competitive outing, Phil Dowson’s side saw their ten-game winning run come to an end as Bristol triumphed 52-21 at Ashton Gate on Friday night.

It was the men in Black, Green and Gold’s first loss since mid-November and they remain top of the Gallagher Premiership with five rounds remaining, with their destiny in their own hands ahead of the defending champions’ visit to cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens on Friday night (kick-off: 7.45pm).

“All that matters is that we work on key areas of our game and keep improving through the week, so on Friday we’re ready to fire and put a performance in, and we'll see where that gets us,” said Ludlam.

Ollie Sleightholme continued his extraordinary try-scoring form with a brace and teenager Jake Garside landed his first Premiership points, but the hosts registered three tries in the first half and five in the second to secure an emphatic win for Pat Lam’s Bears.

Ludlam added: “It's easy to get out of bed on a Monday morning when you’re top and you’re winning, but this will be a test of our character, a test of our strength, a test of our ambitions this season in terms of how we're going to turn up this week.

“We’ve got to pick ourselves up off the floor pretty quickly and get going.

“I’ve got no doubt the boys will come in firing and wanting to improve on that performance. We're top of the table but we haven’t won anything yet.

“Top of the table is a temporary thing and we have to be performance-driven. We haven’t won the league in half a season, we’ve just got to pick ourselves up and keep going. Also, we haven’t lost anything either.

“We’ve just got to keep picking ourselves up and go again to improve key parts of our game because we’ve got all the quality in that changing room to go out and perform, but we didn’t put our best foot forward against Bristol.”