'Blink and you'll miss it' - Saints boss Boyd ready for hectic run-in

“The season here in England is probably a marathon normally but this season is probably around about a 200-metre race - you’re going to blink and miss it,” Boyd said.

“It’s not quite a 100-metre race, that’s probably the play-offs, but it’s going to go really quickly and teams are going to have to manage players well.

“Everyone’s going to have to make contributions, there’s going to be some luck in keeping people fit and how you manage people is going to be critical.

“It’s very short turnaround ahead of next season, which needs to finish before the Lions go to South Africa.

“The next 12 months are going to be pretty intense and all the stakeholders in rugby have handled it all really well in dealing with Covid.

“It’s a testament to the whole rugby fraternity that everyone’s got on with it and accepted there are choices we didn’t really want to make but we’ve had to.

“We’re nearly there and I’m looking forward to it.”

Saints click back into gear at Franklin’s Gardens on Sunday, August 16, when Wasps are the visitors to Northampton.

It is the first of four league games before August is out, with Boyd’s side having to play a midweek match, against Bath, this month.

But if there’s going to be hard work on the pitch, it’s nothing compared to the hours of graft that have gone in to trying to get rugby back on track during a global pandemic.

“The people who are experts in this area really deserve a medal because everything has to be planned and organised,” Boyd said.

“I recently lost two hours of my life that I’ll never get back when we went out and had to go through the process we have to do to return to play, which is Stage 3.

“It includes where the visiting team is going to go, how they’re going to get from there to the field, making sure they don’t cross, who’s going to be the ball boys, where do the media go, every single thing that happens you have to have a thought about it.

“It’s been a massive exercise to get people back to training and it’s a massive exercise to get people back to playing and with Covid still prevalent in the community, if we can actually play successfully in that environment it will have been a massive achievement by a lot of people.

“But if Wasps’ bubble is Covid-free and ours is Covid-free there shouldn’t be any issue when we start playing this month.

“It’s what the testing is there to do and we’ll test a couple of days before we play on that Sunday and we’ll know the day before the game if our squad is Covid-free and which players we have to take out if necessary.

“It will be the same for them.

“The opportunity for people to get infected before the game is very small and as long as everyone does their bit socially outside our bubbles then we’ve done a pretty decent job.”

Boyd has enjoyed being back at the Gardens since training resumed in June.

But there’s one aspect of life in the Covid-influenced world that he certainly isn’t enjoying.

“Everything’s been great, probably with the exception of having to get Covid testing!” Boyd said.

“I’m certainly not enjoying having a swab stuck halfway down my throat, way past my tonsils and up the nostrils so that’s been a bit interesting.

“But otherwise I’ve really enjoyed getting back with the lads and everyone’s keen and frisky.”

Kiwi boss Boyd has had his appetite whetted by watching rugby from back home, with Super Rugby sides battling it out in New Zealand.

And he believes a similar style of rugby can be expected here as Premiership teams get to grips with summer rugby.

“I’ve really enjoyed getting up in the mornings and watching the stuff from home,” Boyd said. “The rugby has been pretty decent and I think it’s a mirror image of what’s going to happen here.

“If you asked all the clubs, all the guys are in pretty good physical condition because they’ve had a long time to condition.

“About 80 per cent of our players have set personal bests in the gym or in speed times or whatever so we’re in a really good physical condition but we’re not conditioned to play rugby and that’s what we’re going through right now.

“The intensity will be high, the intent will be high and I doubt the skill level will match the intensity to start with.

“Everyone’s going to be really keen to get going but we haven’t yet had a chance to get our skills under pressure up to a high enough level to cope with the physical part of it.

“I would think it’s going to be high speed and you throw into that the variations of interpretations from the referees and if we follow the Super Rugby trend there’s going to be more penalties than normal so that will have an influence.

“Once the referees settle down and the players settle down and understand what the referees are interpreting, week two or three we might get some sensiblility.

“It’s going to be hard and fast at the start I’d imagine.”

One thing that will be different between rugby in New Zealand and England is the way fans will watch the games.

New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic has allowed them to welcome supporters into matches, but that won’t be happening in England just yet.

It means players will be forced to play in largely silent stadiums, which will allow teams to try to listen in on calls if and when they are made.

“Not all the calls are verbal anyway and we’re getting pretty proficient with our sign language now,” Boyd said.

“It’s an interesting thing and it’s one of the things we really don’t know how it’s going to have an impact.

“You’d expect that the home fixture is probably not as valuable to you without the crowd there.

“The boys that I have spoken to in New Zealand say they’re back to full crowds so it hasn’t been an issue there but I’d expect it to be different here.

“And verbally, everything is definitely going to get very exposed.”