Time to get down to business as Saints travel to StoneX Stadium

Instead, the likes of Alex Mitchell and George Furbank were at David Ribbans' house, enjoying a farewell party for the Toulon-bound England lock.

Saints were able to relax, sure in the knowledge that whatever unfolded elsewhere, they would have a Gallagher Premiership play-off semi-final to look forward to this weekend.

And now the time for relaxation is over as the black, green and gold face an 80 minutes that will decide whether their season concludes at StoneX Stadium or continues at Twickenham.

"We just had a little do for Dave because he's heading away and he's close with the boys so he had a little bit of a gathering on Saturday," said Furbank, reflecting on the events of last weekend. "It was good fun.

"It was nice not to have that worry to be honest because the anxiety last weekend might have been a bit different to what it was.

"Now it's very exciting. You play rugby to be in play-off footy and to be competing for trophies.

"We had a decent run at the end of the season that allowed us to get into a play-off position.

"Sarries put out a weakened team against us, which ultimately helped, but we still had to go and put a performance in, and we did that to come away with five points.

"We knew Newcastle was going to be a tricky game because they've been pretty good at home and they tend to have a dogged defence, but we produced our best 80-minute performance when the pressure was on.

"It puts us in good stead going into a semi-final."

But Saints aren't just happy with making the play-offs.

They are so eager to do better than last season, when they bowed out at the semi-final stage at eventual champions Leicester Tigers.

"We've not spoken about the last semi-final too much," Furbank said.

"We'd been performing well towards the end of the season and we performed in that game so we should have come away with a win.

"We're focusing on us, we know Sarries are favourites going into this game, but we believe if we put on a performance we can get a victory.

"Having been in that semi-final last year, it helps in pressure moments because you have experienced that pressure at the highest level and when it comes to big games like this, it helps you keep a cool head and feed that energy to the rest of the team as well."

Saracens have not lost at home in the league this season.

And Furbank said: “I don’t think there’s any pressure on us.

"The only pressure is what we’re putting on ourselves to go and deliver a performance.

"The perceived outside pressure is going to be on them rather than us because they haven't lost at home for however long and they finished top of the table.

"We recognise what a good outfit they are, but if we go and put in a performance, I’m pretty confident we can come away with a victory.

Saints will be hoping their talented backs can get enough of the ball to do damage this weekend.

“We’ve had a reasonably settled back three with Rambo (James Ramm), TC (Tom Collins) and Freemo (Tommy Freeman), and those guys are all electric,” Furbanksaid.

"I’m not as electric as they are so my job is to create as much space as I can for them so they can go and do their thing.

"It’s a pretty exciting back three to be part of and one I’m really enjoying.”