Saints stars 'showed a lot of their quality' in big win against Black Lion
Phil Dowson felt Saints' star men 'showed a lot of their quality' during the 93-10 pre-season win against Black Lion on Friday night.
The black, green and gold brought back their internationals and several other key first-team players for the clash with the Georgian side at Franklin's Gardens.
And it was a comfortable win for Saints as they scored 15 tries on their way to victory.
England men Tommy Freeman and Alex Mitchell were among the scorers, with Fin Smith pulling the strings from fly-half and Henry Pollock his typically impactful self.
There were plenty of other strong performances in black, green and gold, with Anthony Belleau and Ollie Sleightholme scoring on their return from injury.
And Saints boss Dowson said: "I thought we did some stuff that was really good.
"There's still loads in there because we can't go from conceding 90 points in a game to scoring 90 points in a game and not have the same mindset around how we evaluate it and go after those improvements we need to make.
"From a performance point of view, there's loads in there that we want to do. We want to play fast, some of our breakdown fundamentals were very good.
"We would have loved to have maybe done a bit more defending. (Defence coach) Jim Henry was hoping we'd get a few more sets just to see how our process and our system was working on that.
"There were elements of the game that we'd still like to do a bit more of, but if you've only got one opportunity for the internationals to play, and that was it, you don't always get what you want.
"There's clearly stuff we'll still work on in the training week."
Saints have played four matches since returning to training after the summer break, facing Asia Pacific Lions, Saracens, Harlequins and now Black Lion.
They won both pre-season matches but lost the PREM Rugby Cup clashes.
"Work ethic from the support staff, the coaches and the playing group has been excellent," Dowson said ahead of the September 25 Gallagher PREM season opener at home to Newcastle Red Bulls.
"We've approached all our challenges in the right way.
"Some of the experiences the younger players got in the PRC were tough but incredibly valuable.
"Here, we got some minutes into some players who are going to be huge for us this season - and they showed a lot of their quality."