Waller says Saints’ front row excellence is all about pride

Waller, Mike Haywood and Tom Mercey packed down against Gloucester last weekend.

The trio, starting with Alex Corbisiero and Dylan Hartley on England duty and Salesi Ma’afu rested, helped propel Saints to a 33-6 LV= Cup victory.

It was the latest in a series of fine performances from Dorian West’s well-drilled pack and Waller, who was making his 100th Northampton appearance in the game, was delighted.

“Set piece is an eight-man job,” he said.

“It’s something we work hard on, something we pride ourselves on and it seems to be going well for us at the moment.

“We work hard on it and at home we don’t want to lose or be embarrassed up front so it’s stepped up another level.

“It’s going well and we’re happy with it.”

Saints’ showings in the absence of their international stars have been hugely impressive, with Jim Mallinder’s men beating Saracens, Ospreys, London Irish and Gloucester in recent weeks.

And Waller is now hoping he and his team-mates can maintain their momentum, when they head to Irish in the LV= Cup on Sunday.

He said: “The squad this year’s pretty fantastic. We’ve got a lot of boys away on international duty but other lads can come in and we can still keep winning.

“We’ll keep the momentum going and when the big lads come back we’ll carry that through.

“Hopefully it will bode well towards the end of the season, but we’ll just have to take it game by game.”