A clash of the hot and cold sides as Saints travel to Wasps

Both clubs have endured mixed starts to the new Gallagher Premiership season, with Saints winning one of their four matches and Wasps winning one of three.

Saints were beaten 26-20 when they travelled to Wasps last October, and they know they need a much better result and performance this time round.

"You probably couldn't meet a team which talks more about being consistently inconsistent than Wasps, and a little bit of that is about their DNA because they try to take a lot of risks," said Saints assistant coach Ferguson.

"You look at a lot of their performances and you can stop the tape at 10-minute chunks and go 'this is a really skillful outfit' and then they've had periods similar to ourselves where teams have managed to put scores on them.

"This week, it will be the team that puts their game on the park for the longest period.

"It's not about making errors, because the game will always have errors in it, it's about the consistency of those errors.

"I'm sure Wasps will be saying exactly the same thing about us in terms of when we're hot, we're hot, but when we're cold, we're way too cold."

Saints have lost to Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers and Harlequins in the league this season, with their solitary win coming at home to London Irish.

And Ferguson added: "The squad needs a performance.

"We've got to cut out the dumb stuff, as Boydy (Chris Boyd) used to say.

"There will be times when we come under pressure - that's the game - there will be times when we make errors, but we need those to be far fewer than they are at the moment.

"It's hard enough to beat teams in this league when they are playing well, never mind when you are shooting yourself in the foot."