Series of unfortunate events for Saints hooker Fish

While George North so often sparked concern during his time at Saints due to the amount of times he was left out cold due to head impacts, ‘the series of unfortunate events’ that James Fish endured can, occasionally, go under the radar.

Even the player himself didn’t realise just how severe his problems were until the point came where he had to have six weeks out of the game to try to repair himself.

“Because mine weren’t huge impacts, over the few weeks you’d take one and be like ‘am I concussed or am I not?’ so I’d keep playing,” Fish explained.

“After a few, that’s when I went to see the specialist and that’s when they said I needed to take a bit of time out.

“Because it’s such a slight change, you don’t really notice it unless you’ve been fully knocked out, which I wasn’t.

“It was just repetitive knocks over a few weeks.”

It meant the start of this campaign at Saints was a struggle for Fish.

He added: “It was a frustrating start to the season because I just kept getting those HIAs (head injury assessments).

“It was slowly deteriorating, which you don’t realise at the time, so I had a six-week chunk out.

“Towards the end of that spell I felt a lot better and I realised I did need that time out.

“It was just a series of unfortunate events.”

Fish is now back and firing, and he has again shown his worth this season, notably when he came off the bench to produce a fine cameo at Lyon in January.

The 23-year-old certainly knows the way to the try line, and he bagged an important score in France that helped Saints to book their place in the Champions Cup quarter-finals.

“I’ve been feeling good about my form,” Fish said.

“I’ve been back for six weeks now and I’ve been playing okay.

“I’m just trying not to throw my head into stupid tackles and get HIAs left, right and centre again.

“I’ve been fairly happy with how I’ve been playing.”

Fish has been kept on his toes by the competition at Saints in recent times.

Despite Dylan Hartley’s retirement earlier in the season, the club can still call on a huge amount of talented players to fill the No.2 shirt.

Mike Haywood continues to be an excellent, consistent performer, Reece Marshall undoubtedly possesses plenty of talent and Fiji World Cup forward Sam Matavesi is also vying for starts.

There is also youngster Samson Ma’asi, who enjoyed some England Under-20s experience before being forced to take a spell out of the game due to kidney failure.

Ma’asi is now back involved at the Gardens after a successful kidney transplant put him back in the game.

And Fish is loving the amount of options and the wealth of talent he is surrounded by.

“It’s really good,” said the Derby-born hooker. “We’re all helping each other out and it means we can rotate.

“Mikey had the week off against Saracens and I got to have a start, then I didn’t play at Worcester.

“We’re challenging each other and you can’t get comfortable in your position because if you have a dip in form, you come out.”