Only ten of the squad who were so narrowly defeated by London Irish in the Guinness Premiership last weekend are retained yet Bristol are still able to name a strong side.
It's the first of a double header in the European Challenge Cup with the teams facing each other again next weekend at the Memorial Stadium.

And, amazingly, the clubs were also drawn together in the same pools in the Guinness A League and the EDF Energy Cup this season, a fact not lost upon Assistant Coach Paul Hull when he spoke to the media this week.

"The two sides are getting to know each other quite well. It's one all at the moment, they won in the EDF Energy Cup and we won in the Guinness Premiership. So, it's going to be interesting."

"We're going up there with a good team. There are some new faces but there are some very highly motivated players looking to stake a claim for a more regular first team spot."

"We played some good stuff up there back in October, got some continuity going and scored some good tries. Then we had a couple of yellow cards, lost our shape and conceded more points than we should."

"So, we'll learn from that. It'll be a challenge as Northampton rarely play badly at home. Frankins Gardens is a great place to play rugby and they're going well in this competition and will want to continue that."

"But we want to go up there and perform well and get an important away win which would be good for us."

Bristol Rugby:
Vunga Lilo; Tom Arscott, Luke Eves, Kevin Maggs, Anthony Elliott; Adrian Jarvis, Graeme Beveridge; Mark Irish, Scott Linklater, Peter Bracken; Mariano Sambucetti, Dave Attwood; Matt Salter (capt), Redford Pennycook, James Phillips

Replacements:
David Blaney, Ray Hogan, Nathan Budgett, Alfie To'oala, Haydn Thomas, Chris Ashwin, Lee Robinson