Saints desperate to go even further in Investec Champions Cup, says Langdon

After needing time to shake off the ring rust, Northampton Saints are back up to full speed ahead of Saturday’s Investec Champions Cup quarter-final against Castres Olympique, says hooker Curtis Langdon.

There were certainly signs of the men in Black, Green and Gold returning to their best form in the last 16 tie against Clermont Auvergne last Friday, a 46-24 triumph in which they scored seven tries.

It was definitely a far cry from their previous outing at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens against Leicester Tigers when they put in a badly disjointed performance.

While the players did not use it as an excuse, it was effectively a full-strength squad’s first match together in over two months due to the amount of Saintsmen on international duty during this year’s Six Nations.

Langdon was one of them, as he featured for England ‘A’ against Ireland before being called into England’s senior squad midway through their campaign, which ended with a second-place finish.

So, did the players simply need time to get used to performing alongside each other again?

Langdon said: “It’s tough, it’s quite new, this break that we have mid-season.

“We have a lot of players that are away on international duty throughout the Six Nations, but we’ve all been training hard. Some lads were playing in the Six Nations or were training hard throughout that period, but not together.

“Some of the lads, like Fin or Fraser, are big parts of our attack not training with the rest of the lads so, after ten weeks, coming back in and having a game, we were always going to be a bit rusty – we certainly hoped to not be as rusty as we were against Leicester.

“We took a lot from that game and we were much-improved against Sale – we were disappointed not to get the win up there, but there was a lot of excitement.

It is set to be a vastly different test to Castres’ previous visit to the Gardens back in December when they left plenty of their key players at home and were comfortably beaten 38-8 in Saints’ opening European fixture of the season.

Given they have the chance of reaching a first Champions Cup semi-final in 23 years, the Stade Pierre-Fabre outfit will be at full strength this time.

This only adds to Langdon’s excitement ahead of another big match on the European stage on home turf for the men in Black, Green and Gold.

“I’m just excited to get back out there with the boys this week,” he said.

“If we can put our game on the pitch this week, we get another opportunity in a knockout game, whether it be at Milton Keynes against Glasgow or in Dublin against Leinster. Those are the type of games you want to play in.

“We’ve obviously played them in the pools but there were only two players who started in that game who started against Benetton last week, so we’re under no illusions that it’s going to be a completely different Castres team this week.

“But we’ve prepared well, we’ve looked at their game against Benetton, we’ve looked at some of their other fixtures they’ve played recently so we’re just excited to get out there again.”

This week has also brought news that Langdon will be packing down alongside an Italian international prop next season.

On the summer arrival of Danilo Fischetti from Zebra Parma, he said: “I’m looking forward to that. I played against him as couple of times when he was at London Irish and I’ve obviously seen him play throughout the Six Nations.

“He looks good at the set-piece, he looks mobile as well, he carries the ball well, he’s a mobile loosehead and I think he’ll bring a lot to the team next year, no doubt about that.”