'You could look at him and think he's a one-trick pony, but he's not' - Vesty hails JJ

And the Saints head coach has hailed the skillset of the sizeable lock, who was opening doors for fun against Vodacom Bulls last Sunday.

Van der Mescht not only caught the eye with his trademark power game, but he also delivered some brilliant passes as Saints stretched the Bulls to breaking point in a 50-5 Investec Champions Cup success at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens.

And when asked whether the South African star's offloading game came from his coaching, Vesty said: "No, absolutely not!

"It's just trying to get JJ the right touches on the ball and then just letting JJ be a really good rugby player, which is what he is.

"You could look at him and think he's just a one-trick pony, but he's not.

"He's a really good footballer, he's got a good passing game, a very good offloading game, he sees space so he's just a really good rugby player.

"My job is to give him chances to be the rugby player that he is."

Saints' summer signings, of which van der Mescht is one, have settled in seamlessly to life at the Gardens.

And Vesty said: "We work hard to make sure people feel like Saintsmen as soon as we possibly can - and you reap the benefits for that.

"Players like JJ van der Mescht and Anthony Belleau have come in with an attitude that they want to be better and they want to have fun. Effectively, you're going to go a long way in our culture with that attitude."

Saints are a hard side to stop when they are able to achieve some consistency of selection.

And they will hope to continue stepping things up as they face a key sequence of games in the Gallagher PREM and Investec Champions Cup during the next few weeks.

"Having a bit more time together is what we need to help our performances and this is the chunkiest part of the season from now until February," Vesty said.

"You've got to give yourselves a good start up to the autumn internationals and we put ourselves in a good spot. This is then the real business, when you've got to go to work, and this next chunk until the Six Nations is the real arm wrestle part of the season."

Vesty, Phil Dowson and James Craig recently signed new contracts to stay at the Gardens for the foreseeable future.

And Vesty said: "As a coaching group, we have a lot of fun, we're very aligned in terms of how we want to do things, we work hard and we enjoy each other's company.

"That makes it so much fun, wanting to go to work every day, and that's the power of this club and this group of people - it makes people want to turn up to work and be better every day."