Saints centre Rory eager to keep the ball rolling against Saracens

After all, he has played a starring role in Saints racking up five successive bonus-point wins in the Gallagher Premiership.

And his swagger is well and truly back.

Hutchinson is determined to keep the ball rolling this weekend when his side emerge from a three-week break to face Saracens at StoneX Stadium this evening.

And the skilful centre said: “I'm just really enjoying my rugby at the moment and you've got to keep that enjoyment side alive.

“For me it's just about keeping playing how I am and you don't know what's going to come off the back of it.

“This situation we're now in is why you do all the hard work in the season to get to these points and hopefully be in knockout rugby and winning silverware.

“We're in a good spot but the job's not done in regards to finishing in the top four.

“We can't afford to slip and it's a really important time of the season now.”

But Saints know just how tough it will be to avoid slipping up against a formidable Saracens side this weekend.

Mark McCall's men bowed out of Europe at the semi-final stage at Toulon last Saturday, but they remain very much on track for a top-two finish in the Premiership.

“Saracens are a very well drilled team and they do their basics very well,” Hutchinson said.

“For us it's about working out how we can go round it or through it and we're doing our work and our analysis, coming up with a game plan that allows us to turn them over at their place.”

Saints, after more than three weeks without a match, must ensure they are not caught cold against a battle-hardened side.

Hutchinson said: “It's been nice to have our weekends back socially but we've been putting in the hard work and we don't want to switch off when it comes to crunch time at the end of the season.

“We still want to keep the ball rolling so we just need to stay in the moment.

“We put a lot of effort in so it was nice to get rewarded in the games before the break.

“Bath wasn't the most ideal, we had to hang on against Quins but in the forwards we were dropping like flies a bit so it's been nice to have a couple of weeks to regenerate and hopefully we get some of those boys back pretty soon.

“It's a really tough period for the coaches to manage and they've had to find a way to make sure we stay fit and look after the players.

“It's been a really good balance and we want to be 100 per cent going into these final few games and pushing for the post-season.

“We've put some good foundations in training that have kept us alive in that respect.

“We had a bit of a hit-out internally so we're still switched on and we've made sure we don't go into switch-off mode.

“It's so important going into these final few weeks and it's actually quite dangerous to have too much of a break so we've worked hard and kept on top of it.”