Spell on the sidelines gave Saints scrum-half James time to take stock

But what he hasn’t been used to is having to scrap for a place in the matchday 23.

This season though, thanks to the emergence of England Under-20s ace Archie McParland, James has found himself in a real fight for selection.

And that has meant he has had to get used to dealing with spells on the sidelines when usually he would be playing his part for the black, green and gold.

"I obviously had a lot of game time at the beginning of the season and I was enjoying it,” James said. “The results maybe didn't quite go our way and then I had to take a bit of a back seat, not getting a lot of game time, but I've been really enjoying the past few weeks, getting some involvements in the Premiership Rugby Cup.

“It (not being selected at times) is part of professional sport and something I've had to deal with before.

“You have to keep that resolve, keep that motivation and maybe find a little bit of a reset and focus on the things that are in your control.

“It's been a really good opportunity for me to take stock in my game and then see where I can improve and really go after it.

“I've been looking at a bit of ball-in-hand stuff, running game, maybe seeing opportunities and scanning, especially at different times.

“It's about playing in that Northampton mold of getting the ball up as quickly as possible and getting that tempo.”

McParland is now out for the rest of the season after having surgery on a shoulder injury sustained while playing for England Under-20s last month.

And that means more responsibility will fall on the shoulders of James, which is something he’s relishing.

“We've got this Prem Cup block now, which is really exciting, and we've got European games as well as a tough Premiership run-in but I'm really looking forward to it,” the 31-year-old said.

“We speak about it at the start of the year and you have three competitions, three opportunities where you can win silverware, and we're still in the mix in all three.

“It's really exciting.

“Winning is a habit, especially when you get to the latter stages of the competitions and we take a lot of confidence from how well we did in that European campaign last year, especially how close we were to beating Leinster.

“We take an enormous amount of confidence from that.”

Saints will host Clermont Auvergne in the Investec Champions Cup round of 16, and they also have a home knockout clash to look forward to in the Premiership Rugby Cup.

Phil Dowson’s men beat Nottingham 66-33 at The Bay earlier this month and then watched on as defeats for Harlequins and Bath meant they qualified as third seeds from the pool stages.

That has teed up a home encounter against Championship side Ealing Trailfinders on Saturday (kick-off 3pm).

And James, who capped a sharp showing with a try against Nottingham, is loving the cup action.

"It's a little bit of a different challenge,” he said.

“There's definitely not less pressure but it's something you can go and enjoy, especially for me because I feel like these cup games are a bit more open than the traditional Premiership or European Cup games so it's definitely something I really enjoy being involved in.”