Saints ready to step it up in the scrum

But the forwards coach believes his players were not given the rewards they deserved last weekend.

Saints had a tough time in the scrum last Saturday as Leicester Tigers claimed a string of penalties from the pushing contest.

But Jim Mallinder’s men still had more than enough quality to claim the win, earning an impressive 24-11 derby-day success at Franklin’s Gardens.

They are now preparing to square up to Bath at the Gardens on Friday night.

And West is hoping Saints get on the right side of referee Tom Foley in the scrum, which is something they didn’t manage with official JP Doyle last weekend.

“Whether they (Leicester) got the upper hand or not physically in the scrum, I’m not so sure,” West said.

“They definitely got rewarded with the penalties, which was very frustrating because I get the chance to analyse what’s happened and I can work things out and ask some questions of the powers that be who make those calls.

“We weren’t happy with how our game went in the scrummage.

“We know we’re responsible for a few bits and bobs that we need to be better at and we’ve been working on that, but there’s also a duty on props to push in the scrum and that’s not always the case at the minute.

“We’re working hard to sort out the things we can sort out and we just hope we get a bit better treatment in the future.”

Bath, who have won both of their opening two league games, beating Leicester and Saracens, will provide a big challenge for Saints.

And West said: “They’re obviously on fire. They’ve won two games against two good sides. They beat Saracens, who made us look pretty ordinary.

“We know what’s coming. They’ve got a good pack of forwards and some real dangerous backs so we need to make sure we turn up, produce a performance last we did last week and we’ll be in with a sniff.”