And that’s the Bath board. All doom and gloom, much more pessimistic than comeonyousaints.com, and yet they sit two places and 8 points above us in the table. A recent away loss to Worcester and home draw to Saracens seem to have sparked this outbreak of hand wringing, but the form book says they should be confident going into Saturday’s game.

This will their 10^th home league game of the season, and apart from the above-mentioned draw, only Irish and Bristol have come away from the Rec with anything other than a beating, and among the scalps hanging on the back of the home dressing room door are those of Tigers, Sale and Wasps.

Saints, meanwhile, prior to the narrow win at Tigers a couple of weeks back, had only garnered one win on the road this season, at fellow relegation contenders Worcester.

So it’s a foregone conclusion, then. Well, not quite. The abysmal start to the season was characterised by a string of excuses and platitudes from management, lacklustre performances that bore the hallmarks of a disillusioned and disheartened squad.

Frequent assurances were made about unity of purpose, and wins were just around the corner, and some better performances seemed to back this up. Unfortunately, we’d misheard, and it was Quins who were just around the corner, and another drubbing.

Then it all changed. Very few of us believed Saints were likely to end Tigers’ three-year home record, but an inspirational try followed by the most dogged defence we’ve seen for from a Northampton side in years led to an unlikely, but welcome, victory.

And last Saturday saw more of the same – except the narrow result went the wrong way. Still, it was another encouraging performance, and one players and supporters alike should take heart from. If those last two games had come at the start of the season it would all be looking rosy at the Gardens.

But this is the end of the season, and time is running out. A similar outcome this weekend to last, and we would be only a point clear of Worcester going into the last couple of weeks of the term.

I am hoping that we will see a similar game plan to that of the previous couple of weeks – intelligent use of our kicking options to control territory, keeping our heads in defence, and making the most of any opportunities that come our way. The good news is that Bath are currently struggling at the set piece, so touch finders into their 22 may well provide a source of points. The conditions are likely to be similar to what we’ve seen lately, so a try-fest is probably not on the cards. However, if we can make a solid start in which our forwards manage to establish parity, or even dominance, we can hope to see some confidence and imagination in our back line, which undoubtedly has the ability to be the best in premiership. If I had to stick my neck out, I would say this is going to be our weekend, a chance to drag ourselves away from the relegation battle and let others worry about ND1. I think we can win this by a dozen.

One point of interest will be how Dylan Hartley’s knack for winding up the opposition goes down with Bath’s second row. Hopefully Kevin will have a couple of spare scrum caps in the back of the van.

Teams:

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS:

15 BRUCE REIHANA (capt), 14 Matthieu Bourret, 13 Seamus Mallon, 12 Robbie Kydd, 11 BEN COHEN, 10 CARLOS SPENCER, 9 MARK ROBINSON; 1 TOM SMITH, 2 Dylan Hartley, 3 John Brooks, 4 Damien Browne, 5 Christian Short, 6 Paul Tupai, 7 Darren Fox,8 CHRISTIAN LABIT

Replacements from: MATIAS CORTESE, SOANE TONGA’UHIA, Chris Budgen, Matt Lord, DAVID GERARD, Ben Lewitt, Mark Hopley, Johnny Howard, Stephen Myler, Vaughan Going.
 

BATH RUGBY:  

15. Nick Abendanon, 14. Joe Maddock, 13. Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, 12. Olly Barkley, 11. David Bory, 10. Chris Malone, 9. Nick Walshe; 1. David Barnes, 2. Pieter Dixon, 3. Matt Stevens, 4. Peter Short, 5. Danny Grewcock, 6. Andy Beattie, 7. Michael Lipman, 8. Isaac Feaunati (captain)

replacements: 16. Rob Hawkins, 17. Aaron Jarvis, 18. Hottie Louw, 19. James Scaysbrook, 20. Chev Walker, 21. Shaun Berne, 22. Andy Williams

Referee: Mr Roy Maybank