Saints seek 'nice crescendo' before break from league action

And he admits the current table-toppers are hitting performance levels that Saints must strive to emulate.

Saracens are the only blemish-free side in the Gallagher Premiership so far this season, winning all eight of their league matches.

And though they, like Saints, will be missing several international stars at StoneX Stadium on Sunday, Vass is under no illusions as to the size of the challenge that lies in wait.

"They're still pretty strong," Vass said.

"It's a strong backline they've got there and a strong back five of their scrum so I don't think they're going to change how they play for anyone.

"They are the epitome of being consistent and those are the levels we strive for.

"It will be a tough game and it's about whether we can match them allied to how we play and what we bring.

"We're coming up to a sort of natural break in the Premiership after it so it would be nice to finish off this first block of Premiership games.

"Obviously going to Saracens is always going to be tough - they've not been beaten yet - so the challenge is there and we've got to go and meet it head on.

"If you can beat a team like Saracens away from home, it's always going to be a positive thing, so it's a good challenge to have at this point in the season.

"It's a nice crescendo to this first part of the season."

While Saracens have been super-consistent, Saints have been consistently inconsistent, winning four and losing four in the league so far this season.

But they have won their past two matches, sparking hope that they can put some kind of run together.

"We've been in an inconsistent nature of winning one and then losing one, and if you get two in a row sometimes you can get three in a row and that becomes four," Vass said.

"We've got a couple of wins, we'd really like to get the next one to make sure it's a solid run and we can be and will be a consistent team for the second part of the season.

"I did see the run of games we've got coming up and they are all huge teams and huge games so we'll find out where we're at, I suppose.

"It's all about trying to breed consistency because we ducked and dived a bit in the first few weeks of the season.

"In the past four or five weeks we've been finding a little bit more consistency to our game.

"You like to win every week, but it's not always possible so at least if the level of performance is consistently good, you feel like you're going the right way."