Courtney Lawes identified the secret to Northampton Saints' success

Veteran Northampton Saints utility forward Courtney Lawes has opened up about his side’s outstanding form after they sealed their second successive Champions Cup victory on Friday night.

The Saints claimed a 22-19 triumph over Toulon at Franklin’s Gardens after they started their campaign with an impressive away victory against Glasgow Warriors last weekend.

It means Phil Dowson‘s charges are sitting pretty at the top of Pool Three and they have won seven out of eight matches in all competitions with their only defeat suffered against Leicester Tigers in the Premiership during that period.

Preparation on point

Lawes gave a frank answer when asked what has contributed to Northampton Saints’ current excellent results.

“Our preparation is getting much better and we really know our identity as a team and what makes us tick,” the 34-year-old told the Northampton Chronicle & Echo.

“When we bring that to the pitch, it’s hard to stop us.”

As the scoreline suggests, Saints were made to work hard for their win against their French visitors and only sealed victory in the game’s dying moments when Tom Lockett crossed for a try, which also secured them a crucial bonus point.

‘Great game’ from Saints

“It was a hell of a shift from the boys,” added Lawes. “It was a great game, very back and forth, Toulon played great so props to them but we showed a lot of heart at the end there to come back and grasp it.

“The plan was to stick to our guns because we’ve got a great attacking game and our defence is improving every week.

“The defence again was the backbone of the performance, and that’s what saw us out at the end.

“They’ve got a lot of class players, some world-class players so we knew they would have some purple patches in the game, and we saw that in the second half.

“But we came out of it in good stead and came away with the win.”