Foden believes Saints can be kings of the midlands

And he wants his side to hammer home their champion status when they welcome local rivals Leicester Tigers to Franklin’s Gardens this weekend.

Saints secured a memorable 21-20 win against Tigers in last season’s Aviva Premiership play-off semi-final and went on to claim the crown at Twickenham.

Foden believes that has brought about a mentality shift at his club and believes it is time for them to start dominating a side who had previously held an impressive derby-day record.

“They’re always very eventful, very feisty games,” said the full-back.

“There’s not much love lost between the sides, but we have massive respect for them and who they are.

“They’ve been a team in the top four, in finals, winning finals for a number of seasons so we know they’re a quality outfit.

“We’ve always played second fiddle but this squad of players are now at a point where we want to compete with them and take that title off them.

“We did that last year in the Premiership but we need to back it up this weekend.

“Last year, they were one of the only sides who beat us at Franklin’s Gardens so that’s a wrong we need to right at the weekend.

“The way things are going at the moment, we need this to kick us into fourth, fifth gear for the big games at the end of the year.”