James Ramm relished the chance to test himself against the best Europe has to offer on Saturday evening.

Ramm started and scored for Saints in their 46-12 Champions Cup defeat at holders La Rochelle.

It was a really tough night for the black, green and gold as they were 32-0 down by half-time.

But that didn't dampen the spirits of Ramm, who says it is occasions like these that made him want to move to Northampton from his native Australia during the summer.

"They (La Rochelle) are another class, eh?" Ramm said. "That was a class team, a class act.

"We knew that coming over because they won the Champions Cup last year.

"We wanted to test ourselves against the best, and to have that opportunity is amazing.

"Obviously the accuracy wasn't there for us.

"We'd mentally prepared for their physicality, but I don't think you actually understand it until you're out there.

"The stadium atmosphere and everything was definitely something I have never experienced so it was definitely something new for me."

He added: "All of the boys were very excited to have the chance to come over to a town like this, where rugby is so big.

"We were walking around on the morning of the game and we saw so many Saints jerseys here. The Saints fans had travelled over in numbers.

"The amount of La Rochelle support here was amazing so to experience that definitely ticked something off for me."

Saints at least gave their fans something to shout about late on as Ramm and Matt Proctor scored in the final 10 minutes, but it was far too little, too late.

"That (the way the game ended) was really positive for us because in the past couple of weeks we've gone the other way," Ramm said. "We've started really well, had a lull and let the other team back in.

"So if we’re going to take any positives out of it, it's that when our backs were against the wall, we were able to fight.

"We showed we weren't going to give up and it showed we can stand with these teams - we need to do it for the full 80."