Cup players to give Saints boss Dowson 'sleepless night' after Harlequins win

The black, green and gold have taken maximum points from home games against Saracens and Harlequins, scoring a whopping 107 points in the process.

They racked up seven tries in Tuesday night's victory against Harlequins, with the likes of James Grayson, Tom James and Tom Collins showing their first-team pedigree.

Numerous others, including a host of young players, have impressed in recent weeks.

And assistant coach Ferguson, who has taken charge of Saints in the cup matches, said: "The senior players have been in this scenario before and you expect to see that quality from them.

"(Courtnall) Skosan was pretty angry last week and put his hand up for the weekend - and you saw what happened (Skosan scored the winning try at Wasps on Sunday).

"The guys that we mentioned here will give Dows a sleepless night tonight. The team's not named for Saturday yet.

"We said from the very start that this whole process was about allowing senior players to return from injury, and you saw Ehren Painter get some minutes tonight.

"Dave Ribbans made his return in this competition and it's also a chance to expose our younger players.

"We should also give credit to the two guests we've had: Isaac Bell from Loughborough and big Marty Mulhall from Bristol. We probably wouldn't have got these games on without them.

"What did we get from it? We learned some more about some youngsters and we managed to get some minutes into our senior players, so all in all it's been a pretty successful trio of games."

Saints raced ahead against Harlequins, with Tom Collins (2), Angus Scott-Young, Kayde Sylvester, George Hendy, Tom Lockett and skipper Tom James on the scoresheet.

And the job was convincingly completed as Saints moved to the top of Premiership Rugby Cup Pool C, ahead of London Irish, who have a game in hand.

Ferguson said: "We talk about starting with some momentum and we showed up really well in that first half by putting our game on them. We had go-forward and all the things we talk about in our Saints DNA.

"The backs can only play on the back of a good platform and there were some good contact skills.

"Our game relies heavily on our launch but also our breakdown accuracy and people like Joel Matavesi put in some good contact work throughout the game.

"The detail of those first arriving players at the breakdown really allowed us to get the speed of ball and we finished off incredibly well in the wide channels."