Dom Waldouck: Believes Saints needs two big results
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Northampton centre Dom Waldouck believes his side needs two 'big results' to stay in contention for a Heineken Cup play-off berth.
The Saints host Top 14 side Castres in their Pool Four encounter at Franklin's Gardens on Friday.
Ulster are in first position in the pool's standings with 15 points while Castres are second on 12 and the Saints are third on 10 points.
After this weekend's match Northampton travel to bottom-placed Glasgow Warriors eight days later and Waldouck believes these two fixtures are golden opportunities for them to upset the odds and reach the tournament's knockout stages.
"It's a huge competition for us and we're still alive," he told the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
"We need two big results in the next two weekends and hopefully we can take some momentum into the Heineken Cup and into the rest of the season."
The momentum Waldouck is referring to is the Saints' 30-19 victory at Exeter last weekend - a result which silenced their critics after a fine display.
Waldouck said the criticism from some members of the media was used as motivation ahead of the clash with the Chiefs.
"We've had a lot of criticism in the media, Sky Sports had been on to us," he explained.
"We'd lost by a point the week before to the top team in the Premiership (Saracens) and we'd come under a lot of criticism so it was important to go out on Saturday and prove that we believe in ourselves.
"There aren't many trophies won in January so we can make a push at the end of the season."
Comments
bullitt says...
Take the Irish away and the Pro12 is nothing.
Posted 15:10 08th January 2013
kybone says...
rugby_rockstar- Im not sure that the 5th placed team in the Prem losing away to the 2nd placed team in the Pro12 could be considered blowing it. If it is then thats another sorry endictment of the Pro12.
Posted 14:00 08th January 2013
Jediboy says...
I really hope that Saints can pull this one out of the bag. I agree that on paper they should, but we have so inconsistent its difficult to be too confident. I hope that the Exeter game was a sign that things are on the up, but I said that after the Ravenhill game!!
Here's hoping.
Posted 12:21 08th January 2013
rugby_rockstar says...
It is a season defining fortnight alright. On paper, I would suggest that they ought to be able to beat Castres at home and Glasgow away. If the do lose, it'll be percieved that they blown it again. I'm still of the opinion that if you stop Ken Pesi then you have little to fear from Saints.
Posted 08:47 08th January 2013
NHsaints says...
State the obvious there Dom. To be fair he had a much better game than usual for us at 12, he just needs a little more bulk so he can match the other centres we had like Downey or even May in his carrying over the gainline.
Posted 08:06 08th January 2013