Foden reveals how Hartley punch sparked Mujati into life at Saints

Hartley and Mujati were part of arguably the most formidable front row in Europe at one point, with Soane Tonga'uiha completing the fearsome trio.

They carried Saints all the way to the Heineken Cup final in 2011, when Leinster staged a remarkable comeback to grab glory in Cardiff.

Tonga'uiha, Hartley and Mujati continued to shine for Saints in the years that followed, helping them reach the Premiership final in 2013.

But Mujati, who joined Saints from the Stormers in 2009, and Tonga'uiha would leave the club that summer after receiving big-money offers from France.

Hartley and Foden stuck around far longer, and they recently reunited on the RugbyPass Offload podcast to reflect on their time at Saints, among other things.

And full-back Foden told the story of how hooker Hartley livened up Mujati by landing a shot on him in training.

“This is one of my favourite stories about Dyls being a captain, because this needed to happen,” Foden said.

“Mooj, I hope he won’t mind me saying, when he first turned up at Northampton he was there on a jolly. He was like, ‘I’m happy to sit on the bench'.

“We had signed this South African, big unit, he was stacked for a front row. We were like, ‘him and Tonga’uiha are going to change the way we play the game.’ And he turned up, and he was not interested.

“It started to really sink in with people: Who is this guy, sitting on the bus saying ‘I’m happy to get paid my money and sit on the bench.’ I know Dyls heard this and was like, ‘this guy needs to be sorted out.’

“One day in training, Dyls is being a bit niggly. He keeps niggling and trying to get Mooj to bite, and eventually Mooj bites, goes for Dyls, but Mooj doesn’t realise all this backed up aggression in Dyls, who is annoyed because he’s captain of the team and this guy is in his front row, supposed to be a hard-ass dude, and he’s just here on a jolly.

“Mooj sort of goes towards Dyls to threaten it, and Dyls doesn’t even hesitate: boom, wallops him straight in the eye, splits him straight across the eye. I’m in the middle like ‘Woah, what is going on!’ and Mooj is just shocked. You can just see Dyls has got that glint in his eye, like, ‘I’m going to kill you.’

“Mooj is a big dude, and Dyls is a big dude, but I think if you’re looking as an outsider you think Mooj is going to kick Dyls’ ass, but not that day. Dyls was ready to throw down and Mooj was shocked, split his eye. I was in between, telling Mooj to go see the physio and Dyls to calm down, get back into training.”

“I’m telling you now, from that moment, I don’t know whether Dyls spoke to Mooj after, but there was something switched inside Brian that made him realise he was there for a bigger job than what he thought.

“He became an unbelievable player for us and a real cornerstone of our scrum. Him and Tonga’uiha sort of gave us that platform to go and win silverware and be competitive.

“I always really respected Dyls for that, that he took it on his shoulders to sort him out.”

Hartley was asked about the incident and whether he apologised to Mujati.

Hartley said: "You always see it different through your own eyes and I did apologise. You always do it straight after, you never let it linger."