Saints winger Pisi wary of Wasps’ key man Hughes

Hughes arrived in England last year, having established himself at Auckland in the ITM Cup, the highest level of domestic professional rugby union competition in New Zealand.

Pisi also played in those surroundings during his time with North Harbour, going on to make the move to Saints in the summer of 2012.

And he is well aware of Hughes, whose ball-carrying abilities are drawing plenty of attention in the formative stage of this Aviva Premiership season.

“I know quite a few of the boys at Wasps,” said Samoan wing Pisi. “They’ve got Alapati Leiua, but he’s injured at the moment, and Sailosi (Tagicakibau) on the wing - I get along well with him.

“They’ve also got the big Hughes there. He’s a good player and I’ve played against him back home.

“He’s dangerous. Once he gets his game going and his confidence up over here, he’ll be a threat.”

Hughes played a sizeable part in helping Wasps push Saracens all the way last weekend, with Dai Young’s men just pipped in a 34-28 Twickenham defeat.

But Pisi feels that performance will give them plenty of confidence as they prepare to take on a Saints team who thrashed Gloucester 53-6 last Friday.

“They’ve brought in some new players and they are looking dangerous,” he said.

“They only lost by a few points to Saracens at the weekend and they’ll be up for this game.

“We’re really looking forward to getting out there.”