Langdon ready to build on stellar first season with Saints

The Saints hooker has certainly had the form to make it into the international setup, but he hasn't had the fortune.

He missed out on England A action in February due to a suspension picked up for an incident at Munster in January, when Langdon was dismissed for head contact with Tom Ahern.

There was no malice from the Saints man but his actions resulted in Ahern being forced off and Langdon being banned for four weeks, which encompassed the England A game against Portugal.

He returned to action in March, continuing what had been a stellar first season at Saints, and Langdon helped to propel the club to a first title in 10 years as they edged past Bath in the Gallagher Premiership showpiece at Twickenham.

But that win came at a cost to the indefatigable forward as he suffered a shoulder problem that ruled him out of selection for England's Summer Series in Japan and New Zealand.

It was another tough blow for Langdon to take as he had more than merited Red Rose selection.

But he is now fully fit again and ready to try to make his own luck in the season ahead.

"After the final I was in rehabbing quite a bit with my shoulder, trying to get that right as soon as possible," said Langdon, who has won two England caps to date, both of which came during the summer of 2021.

"I then went away for a week with my girlfriend to Croatia, which was nice, then came back, had a few more days off and since then I've been ripping in to pre-season. It's been going well.

"I was hoping I was going to be on the England tour and I had a few phone calls with Steve (Borthwick) but unfortunately after seeing the doctor after the final and then being reviewed in the morning, my shoulder wasn't good enough to go on tour.

"I was pretty gutted at the time because I thought my shoulder would be okay in a few days but looking back now, Steve made the right decision and I wouldn't have been able to give my best if I did go on tour.

"I'm feeling back to my best now and hopefully I get another opportunity in the autumn, obviously if I'm performing well at Saints."

While he was disappointed to miss out on the England tour, Langdon knew he had few other reasons to complain following a fantastic first campaign at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens.

"It was a bit frustrating (to not play for England) but everything else in the season went pretty well, in terms of winning the Premiership and the performances we put in at Saints," Langdon said.

"You can't have it all and everything seems to happen for a reason as well.

"Hopefully I get another opportunity in the near future and I'll be at 100 per cent, be able to give my all and hopefully I can stay in the England team."

For now though, Langdon is fully focused on backing up his stellar campaign at Saints.

"It was brilliant!," said the 26-year-old, who made the move to Northampton from Montpellier last summer.

"It's hard to reflect on because it was so good. I don't think I could have hoped for it to have gone any better.

"You look back to the start of the season when we lost our first couple of Prem games then we got that first win, at Newcastle, and started to build a bit of momentum.

"Going as far as we went in Europe was special, especially being able to play at Croke Park in the semi-final, and obviously we came very close that day.

"It's really cool to look back on but now the focus has been how can we go better this year, individually and as a team?

"I'm working hard now to put myself in the best place possible to have an even better season when it starts."

Langdon was the heartbeat of the Saints team last season, with his energy setting the tone for his team-mates.

When he played well, which was extremely often, so did the black, green and gold.

So does the former Sale Sharks, Worcester Warriors and Montpellier man feel he has become a better player since switching to Saints?

"I think so," Langdon said.

"Playing every week in this Saints team has helped massively in terms of working out how to be comfortable in this team and the best way to play with the players we've got with the system (Sam) Vesty wants to run and the system Radders (Lee Radford) brought in last year as well.

"All the game time helped me massively. I got some momentum and some experiences of playing in big games: the Prem final, semi-final and the European semi-final at Croke Park.

"It's definitely made me a better player."

Langdon has certainly been a success story for Saints.

He was surely one of the signings of the season in the Premiership last year, and now he will be hoping his younger brother can follow in his footsteps.

Nathan Langdon was recruited by Saints this summer and has set his sights on challenging Curtis for a starting spot.

"It's been strange in the past couple of weeks having him (Nathan) around in pre-season, but it has been nice as well," Langdon said.

"I know he's worked really hard to get to this point.

"He was with Sale at the start of last season and took his opportunities quite well there but nothing really came of it. They had a lot of hookers at the World Cup so they came back and knocked him out of the team.

"But he's buzzing to have his opportunity at Saints and I'm sure he'll take it with both hands.

"He's been working hard and he'll be putting a lot of pressure on me as well so I'll have to make sure I keep him at arm's length."

The Langdon brothers have never actually been in the same matchday squad.

"We've kind of gone on quite similar routes," Curtis explained.

"We both came up through the London Irish Academy but Nath's four years younger than me so we've never really crossed paths.

"There's bits of his game that are similar to me, but also bits that are different.

"He does his job very well in terms of he's a good thrower, his set-piece work is good and he enjoys the physicality side of the game, which is pretty similar to me.

"He likes to bring a lot of dominance in defence."

Langdon will undoubtedly provide all the help he can to get his brother up to full speed at Saints.

But it's not just at the Gardens where he will be passing on his advice, having agreed to help out with the coaching at newly-promoted Championship side Chinnor.

"Through knowing Nick Easter from my time at Worcester, he just picked up the phone to me in the off-season and asked if I would help out with the scrums so I said I would," Langdon explained.

"Chinnor isn't too far away and I think it will help me with my coaching because I've done a bit of it in the past.

"I did my level three coaching award when I was at Sale and I was coaching a lower league team so I thought it would be good to do a bit more this season.

"Chinnor have gone up to the Championship so it will be a good challenge.

"It's only one night a week and I've got a bit of spare time so outside of my commitments with Saints, I thought I'd give up one night a week to do that."

The clock is now ticking down towards the start of Saints' pre-season campaign, against Leinster at the Gardens on September 7.

All sights will be set on the big Premiership opener at Bath 13 days later.

And Langdon said: "It's not as long of a pre-season as it was last year so hopefully the season comes around quickly.

"We obviously start with Bath on a Friday night away so I'm really looking forward to that.

"Obviously having them in the final and being on the right end of the result, Bath are going to be right up for that game, and so are we, so it's going to be a good test to start off with."

Online car retail giant cinch has just opened its first physical store here in Northampton. Saints’ players attended the store’s grand opening on Saturday afternoon to meet fans and customers at the new state-of-the-art showroom on Bedford Road.