Lawes: Saints players in England contention
Courtney Lawes believes more Northampton Saints players can follow him into the England side this season.
The young star made his first start for England in the second Test win against Australia alongside team-mates Chris Ashton and Ben Foden.
With Dylan Hartley getting back to fitness, there could be four Saints players in the starting line-up for the opening Investec Series game against New Zealand at Twickenham on November 6.
And Lawes believes more could join them with Phil Dowson pushing hard to get into the front-row following his call-up to the senior squad from the Saxons in June.
Stephen Myler, Shane Geraghty and Jon Clarke are also all in the England reckoning, and Lawes said: "We've got a really good setup at Northampton with a lot of good players coming through, and hopefully there's more coming through the ranks.
"All of the coaches are top class, they know what they're doing, they're on the ball – they have a game plan, they know how they want us to play and fortunately it all seems to be paying off."
Lawes is set to taste his first pre-season action in the clash with French Pro D2 side US Dax in Capbreton tonight after missing last week's opening win at Bedford because he was at an England training camp.
After winning in Australia to draw the two-match Test series, there is a new confidence bubbling in the England set-up, and Lawes said: "It's been exciting to get back playing and training together, it's a good feeling. We've got a good bond and Martin Johnson has got us fit and playing some good rugby."
With a good buzz in the England camp Lawes feels the performance against Australia has shown Johnson's squad that they are good enough to compete with the top sides in the world and the 21-year-old can't wait to take on the Tri-Nations this November
"After the win over Australia I don't think we need to change too much," said Lawes. "Things worked well for us over there so there's no reason why we can't take that forward and progress even further.
"The only thing that changed was because of the rule changes around the ruck, but that's the only thing, not much with our actual game plan, so we can take that forward into the autumn internationals."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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