The brutal stats that table-topping Northampton take most pride in

In the past two seasons, Northampton have won the PREM and reached the final of the Investec Champions Cup by playing a free-flowing brand of rugby and winning a lot of admirers along the way.

However, beyond all the plaudits they get for style from outsiders, inwardly the 2024 English champions are deriving much greater satisfaction from their performance in three nitty-gritty areas of the game.

Saints are top of the class in the league for post-contact metres, dominant carries and dominant tackles.

Not normally associated with physicality, Saints have made 105 dominant tackles, which is 17 more than the next-best side, Sale Sharks, their opponents this Saturday.

Helped by the arrival of hulking, 145kg second-row, JJ van der Mescht, Saints’ carry dominance is running at a league-high 21.6%, while their tally of 1,227 post-contact metres made, also eclipses every other team in the league.

“Oh man, that is eye-catching. People don’t associate that with the Saints, do they?” said Director of Rugby Phil Dowson, when asked if those three stats were the less ‘eye-catching’ reasons behind the team’s success this term.

“I tell you the stat that we show more than any other in a team meeting would be the three you’ve just pulled out.

“The game is still momentum, you still have to go forward, and if you are stopping them in ‘D’ (defence), and then you’re going forward in attack …

“Now how you do that, there are loads of different ways. That’s the joy of the game, isn’t it. Sale do it differently to Saints, blah, blah, blah.

“But the dominant tackles, the dominant yards after contact, all that sort of stuff, yeah, we are big into that.

“That is something we show, measure and reward, and love.”