All smiles for Sam as he continues to savour life at Saints

It seems unlikely as the Fiji hooker continues to look like he's loving life at Saints.

And that was something he confirmed at this week's media session.

“I'm really happy,” said Matavesi, who made his 50th Premiership appearance for Saints last weekend, scoring in the 32-31 win against Newcastle Falcons.

“It's home, my wife is happy, the kids are happy.

“I'm a Cornish Fijian very happy in Northampton.”

Matavesi is also enjoying the fact that he has been joined in the Saints squad by younger brother Joel, who signed a permanent deal after initially arriving on trial late last season.

“I'm really happy that I've got my little brother with me,” Matavesi said.

“In the past he's always been with our other brother, Josh, so it's nice to have him here with me.

“He's doing well.

“You want him to play but he knows people like Hutch (Rory Hutchinson), Dingers (Fraser Dingwall) and Matty P (Matt Proctor) are in front of him at the moment, but he's doing really well.

“He's pushing it and hopefully he'll get a shot in the next few weeks.”

So do Sam and Joel speak much about their Saints performances when they are outside of the club?

“One plus is that he plays in the backs and I play in the forwards so he's not going to tell me how to scrum, but I might tell him how to kick!” Matavesi said, laughing.

“We're pretty good because we know what we need to work on and having our own opinion is good, but we're not going home and watching every minute of rugby on TV.”

While Joel has been playing, and impressing, in the Premiership Rugby Cup for Saints, Sam has remained a key member of the front row in the Gallagher Premiership.

He has helped Saints to secure back-to-back wins in the league, just as Joel has in the cup.

And next up for Sam is a trip to the league's bottom side, Bath, on Saturday.

“In the first six games we've seen we can put it on teams and we're at our best when we're quick, winning collisions, the ruck speed is good and we're playing rugby,” Matavesi said.

“The problem is that at the minute we're not doing it for long enough periods.

“We've got to keep doing what we're doing, but do it for longer periods.

“The set piece is going to be big at Bath because that's a good area for them.

“It's cliché but if we concentrate on ourselves this week we should go to Bath pretty confident of getting some points.”

Matavesi knows Saints have been far from at their best.

But he added: "A team that plays badly and loses is not a great sign, but it's a good sign when you play pretty badly for long spells and win like we did last week and against Wasps.

“Us and Bath are pretty similar because if we get it on the pitch and it clicks, we can be quite dangerous.”

Matavesi is a member of the Fiji squad for the autumn internationals.

And he said: “I'm really excited.

“It's quite nice to break things up a bit in the season and you get a fresh environment, you work with new people and I get put in a completely different culture.

“It's really exciting.”