Day: Saints won’t hide away after slow start

Instead, the experienced lock feels he and his team-mates will pick themselves up and put in a big performance against Scarlets this weekend.

Saints’ 12-6 defeat at home to Saracens last Saturday was their third in four Aviva Premiership matches this season.

They are currently in the lower reaches of the league table, which they topped for the first time during the previous campaign.

But with a Champions Cup opener against Scarlets beckoning on Saturday night, they have no time to dwell on their below-par Premiership performances.

“We had a very successful pre-season where we were undefeated and playing some very good rugby,” Day said.

“We have started poorly by our standards, we’re not going to hide away from that, but we’re all professionals, we’re all here to do our job and we’ve got to pick ourselves up and go into a new competition this week.

“Hopefully we can start it off with a win.”

On the defeat to Saracens, Day said: “We came up against a very good Saracens team.

“We know these games are going to be tough, they’re a top quality team who are going to be there or thereabouts come the end of the season, and unfortunately they came out on top.

“We did well in the scrum, the lineout was pretty close and they were probably just on top there.

“There was some brilliant work in the scrum but we’re a lot more than that as a team and we’re disappointed with the whole package.”