Director of rugby Jim Mallinder has decided to put out his strongest side not only to win, but to get his team back in form before the return of the Guinnes Premiership.
Although Saints come into the game at the top of pool two, they have only gar
nered three league points from their last three Guinness Premiership matches. Mallinder is therefore looking for an improved performance from his players and is keen that the team should use the Challenge Cup to further its development as a unit.
"The Challenge Cup gives us a change of focus," Mallinder said. "The next two weeks give us an opportunity to get our game in shape, get our players performing well and get ourselves into a good frame of mind. We want to get some momentum back into our season while also looking to continue the good start to our Challenge Cup campaign."
It means Stephen Myler moves back to fly-half, with Chris Mayor back from a thigh injury to play at outside centre, so skipper Bruce Reihana can move back to full-back.
Dylan Hartley starts after returning from England duty, with Euan Murray also playing and surprisingly not given a rest after starring for Scotland in the autumn internationals.
Jon Clarke also returns from injury to make the bench with Lee Dickson prefered at scrum-half.
15 Bruce Reihana (capt)
14 Chris Ashton
13 Chris Mayor
12 James Downey
11 Paul Diggin
10 Stephen Myler
9 Lee Dickson
1 Soane Tonga'uiha
2 Dylan Hartley
3 Euan Murray
4 Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe
5 Christian Day
6 Mark Easter
7 Scott Gray
8 Roger Wilson
Replacements
16 Paul Shields
17 Barry Stewart
18 Alex Rae
19 Mark Hopley
20 Ben Foden
21 Carlos Spencer
22 Jon Clarke
The full article contains 321 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
