Gloucester loss has to be a wake-up call for Saints, says Langdon

The black, green and gold host Castres on Saturday afternoon (kick-off 3.15pm) as they bid to bounce back from a frustrating 25-17 loss at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens last weekend.

Saints weren't at the races during a first half in which they fell 22-7 behind and though they picked up the tempo after the break, they took nothing from the game as they suffered a fourth defeat in seven Gallagher Premiership matches so far this season.

And Langdon, who played the full 80 minutes at hooker, said: "This just has to be a wake-up call now.

"It hurts losing at home.

"We've got to go two weeks now in Europe and we need to build some momentum.

"We want to compete in Europe - they're two big weeks.

"We need to take the lessons from this defeat and review it to see why we weren't there.

"We need to put it right in the next couple of weeks and going back into the Prem."

Saints reached the semi-finals of the Champions Cup last season, eventually being edged out by Leinster at Croke Park.

And Langdon is desperate to go one better in the competition during this campaign.

"We just want to build on that this year," he said.

"Castres are coming here, a big French pack, and we just want to make memories like we did last year and see if we can go even further.

"Physically we weren't there against Gloucester and it's a big test this week to put right some wrongs."

Saints had won 13 home Premiership matches in a row before Gloucester grabbed the victory at the Gardens last weekend.

And Langdon said: "It's tough to take, our first loss at home since Bristol at the start of last season.

"We just weren't playing our game in that first half. Physically, we weren't there.

"We were playing catch-up second half. The game was there for us to win in that second half and we put ourselves in a position to win it, but we made it really hard with that first half, not turning up from minute one.

"It was really disappointing.

"We were creating opportunities second half, we were more physical and the game looked more like our type of game but we were chasing the game and when you're chasing the game like that, mistakes happen.

"We couldn't take some of the opportunities that we created."

One positive for Saints last weekend was the return of Alex Mitchell.

The England scrum-half, who has overcome a neck problem, made his first appearance of the season with a sparkling showing from the bench.

"It's been a tough time for Mitch," Langdon said. "He picked up the injury and there was a bit of uncertainty in terms of how long he was going to be out for. We knew he was going to be out but we didn't know when, and that's obviously extremely frustrating as a player.

"But when he came on, he obviously gave us a big boost. He was obviously excited to be back and he brought a lot of tempo to our play, which helped us."