Tuitavake takes heart ahead of Saints' trip to Tigers

And the Tongan centre is hoping he and his team-mates can use the confidence they have gained in upcoming Anglo-Welsh Cup games against Leicester Tigers and Scarlets.

Saints, who were without the majority of their international stars, were beaten 26-17 by Montpellier, but had led 10-7 at half-time against a near full-strength home side.

And Tuitavake, who was making his first Northampton start, was buoyed by the performance.

“It was definitely great to be out there and you could see the effort out there,” Tuitavake said.

“The boys played well but unfortunately we were a bit unlucky and were forced into a few errors and just came up short.

“We’ve got to take a lot of positives out of that game, because we had a lot of new combinations out there and I thought the boys did well.

“We kept in the game, but in the end we couldn’t stop their big man (Nemani Nadolo) on the wing.

“It will give us heaps of confidence going into these Anglo-Welsh Cup weeks.

“We’ll keep progressing with those building blocks and working on those combinations, looking for some positive results along the way.”