Brady 'humbled' by his trip to Saints and hopes to repay the favour

Jon Brady hopes to repay the favour and invite Northampton Saints' coaching staff to a Cobblers training session in the near future after being 'humbled' by his recent short trip down the road.

Saints' head of recruitment Paul Shields is close friends with Brady and invited him down to the club shortly after he was made interim manager at the Cobblers back in February.

Town's hectic schedule put the trip on pause for a few months but eventually Brady had the time to pay Saints a visit once the League One season finished.

"About a month after I took the job here, I was offered the opportunity by Paul Shields to go to Northampton Saints and see some of the transferable skills in terms of the language they might use and the organisational structures," explained Brady.

"We were so busy with all the games on Saturdays and Tuesdays that I didn't get the opportunity to go over, but I asked Paul to put it on pause because I wanted to go down as soon as I could.

"I went down and I was truly humbled by all the time everyone gave me, Chris Boyd especially. I didn't expect to get so much time with them but I was really part of the team and the training session for the whole day and it was brilliant.

"We hope to reciprocate that and build a strong relationship with them going forward because a lot of the language and the way they do things is transferable."

And neither Brady nor Boyd will let the Aussie-Kiwi rivalry get in the way of what they hope will be a productive and positive relationship.

"Maybe it's a southern hemisphere thing! There was a lot about leadership, but let's get it right, Chris Boyd is on a different level in terms of the players and the teams he's managed," Brady added.

"To learn off someone like that is really good for me but it's the way we try and do things and about empowering the players and helping them to lead within the groups and creating team spirit and an atmosphere.

"It was inspirational and it was also quite transferable and noticeable that we do some very similar things so it also reinforces that you're following methods that do work, which was important as well."