Saints full-back Foden wary of old friend May

Ben Foden is relishing the reunion with former Saints team-mate Tom May at the Kassam Stadium.
WE MEET AGAIN - Ben Foden will square up to old friend Tom May this weekend (picture: Linda Dawson)WE MEET AGAIN - Ben Foden will square up to old friend Tom May this weekend (picture: Linda Dawson)
WE MEET AGAIN - Ben Foden will square up to old friend Tom May this weekend (picture: Linda Dawson)

And the England full-back knows Northampton must watch their former employee closely today (Sunday).

May will captain Welsh against Saints, for whom he scored two tries the last time the two teams met, in Oxford last April.

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Jim Mallinder’s men prevailed 31-14 and will hoping to get the better of winless Welsh once again this weekend.

But Foden knows May will pose a threat to their hopes, indulging in a bit of pre-match sledging to get things started.

“No, but you can still get them on Twitter,” said Foden when asked whether he misses May’s renowned words of wisdom. “He’s always on there.

“It’s always good to see guys you’ve been around, it will be good to see him again.

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“He looks a bit more like Phillip Schofield now with his silver fox hairdo, but he’s a good player.

“Last time we played London Welsh, he was man of the match and scored a couple of tries so we’ll definitely have a marker on him coming down the middle channel.”

Welsh have lost all 12 of their games this season, suffering some real hammerings along the way.

But they were 5-0 up against Leicester last weekend before falling to a 26-5 defeat and Foden knows history will mean nothing this time round.

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“They’re a team that are struggling this year and they’ve had a few tricky results,” he said.

“But last week they showed a bit of character, they stuck in the game and made it hard for Leicester to get the points.

“The big focus for us is ourselves, not getting dragged into their kind of game and we know we’ve got a strong side out with guys returning from England.

“We’ve got to use Luther (Burrell) well, get him up the middle, get the forwards playing well, play in the rigth areas of the field.

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“We’re fully focused on what we’re doing as a team and we’re not getting too carried away with ourselves.

“We put in a good shift against Saracens last Sunday, but there’s areas we need to work on and we need to put in an 80-minute performance and get the points.”