England star to make long-awaited Saints comeback from bench

George Furbank is set to play his first game since fracturing an arm against the Bulls in mid-December after being named on the bench for Northampton’s Investec Champions Cup quarter-final tie at home to Castres this Saturday.

Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson hinted that the England full-back was in with a chance of a return when speaking with the media earlier this week, and the 28-year-old has since proved he is ready after successfully coming through contact training.

Dowson has opted to go with an unchanged starting XV from the one that took to the field for last weekend’s 46-24 win against Clermont Auvergne.

Fraser Dingwall keeps the captaincy against Castres, leading Saints from inside centre and partnering outside centre Burger Odendaal in the midfield for the third week running.

Outside them, Northampton are unchanged in the back three – with last week’s hat-trick scorer Tommy Freeman starting on Saints’ wing alongside George Hendy, while James Ramm begins the match at fullback.

England duo Alex Mitchell and Fin Smith – who scored 16 of Saints’ points last weekend – start in the half-back berths against Castres, at scrum-half and fly-half, respectively.

Props Emmanuel Iyogun and Trevor Davison start alongside hooker Curtis Langdon again in the front row this week, with locks Temo Mayanavanua and Alex Coles behind them in the engine room.

In-form flankers Josh Kemeny and Henry Pollock stay on for Saints in the back row, joining No.8 Juarno Augustus – who scored a brace of tries in Castres’ last visit – to complete the starting line-up.

Furbank has the No23 jersey as Saints go with a 5-3 bench this weekend.

Northampton vs Castres, Saturday, April 12th, KO 17:30

15 James Ramm
14 Tommy Freeman
13 Burger Odendaal
12 Fraser Dingwall (c)
11 George Hendy
10 Fin Smith
9 Alex Mitchell

1 Emmanuel Iyogun
2 Curtis Langdon
3 Trevor Davison
4 Temo Mayanavanua
5 Alex Coles
6 Josh Kemeny
7 Henry Pollock
8 Juarno Augustus

Replacements:
16 Henry Walker
17 Tom West
18 Elliot Millar Mills
19 Tom Lockett
20 Tom Pearson
21 Tom James
22 Rory Hutchinson
23 George Furbank