Fans' relief as Saints favourite Christian cooks up more MasterChef success

Christian Day army of fans had a nervous wait before seeing the former Northampton Saints star finally go through to the MasterChef knockout week.

The Franklin's Gardens favourite, 36, sailed through Wednesday night's heat but judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace kept viewers on tenterhooks before making Day the last of three qualifiers from the quarter-final last night (Thursday March 12).

One fan tweeted: "I’ve never been more nervous watching a cooking show in my life. Me and the mother actually cheered like we were at the rugby!"

Six cooks were set a brief to cook a plant-based dish by renowned food writer and critic William Sitwell.

Day gambled by doing a complex dessert ... he had NEVER cooked before.

Before getting stuck in, the 6ft 5in former lock forward said: "I like this dish because it's a really technical, there's 11 different things going on the plate.

"I've never acutally cooked this dish all the way through from start to finish. But I'm very OCD, a big stickler for planning .. I've got my sheet and hopefully I can stick to it."

Day's dish was an almond cake on caramalised apple compote, dark chocolate ganache made with advocado instead of cream, almond praline tuile, apple jellies set with plant-sourced agar, blackberry coulee with fresh apple and blackberries.

It probably took longer to read on the menu than to eat but the judges were impressed.

Judge John said: "Christian is a very honed, very techinical cook. The guy's got real style.

"It wasn't perfect but the technical stuff he did on that plate was phenomenal. "

Judge Gregg added: "It's fabulous to my eyes, that thing. The sponge is a little dense but that doesn't stop me being very impressed."

Day, who retired from playing two years ago and is now a liaison officer for the Rugby Players' Association, said: "I'm absolutely ecstatic to get through.

"The brief didn't really suit me. Hopefully next time there will be a nice pie around for me to excel in."

Last night's quarter-final is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.