The seeds for Northampton Saints’ storming season were being sewn as soon as the dust had settled on their semi-final defeat by Saracens last spring – their fourth loss at that stage since they won the title in 2014.
Lee Radford was brought over from rugby league as their new defence coach last summer and despite calling his appointment a “bit of a left-fielder”, the 45-year-old’s arrival has proved a masterstroke.
Only bottom of the table Newcastle conceded more tries than Northampton in 2022-23, while this year they gave away 158 fewer points.
Saints’ free-flowing attack has long been something to admire but this season it matched a more rounded performance.
They top the stats for most defenders beaten of the top four teams, the most carries and tackles made of the entire league and the second most metres made of any team.
They are also now reaping the benefit of years of developing their own players, with George Furbank, Alex Coles and Fraser Dingwall all coming through their academy to become key first-team fixtures.
Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson said the culture across the club has moved in the same direction with a key understanding of how they want to play.
“We talk about winning together and losing together, it’s a whole squad effort, it’s going to take different people to step up,” Dowson – who was part of the 2014 title-winning playing squad – told BBC Radio Northampton.
“We’re going to play our game, which we’ve always played. We’re going to be super connected in defence because we have to be around their nine and 10.
“Our set-piece, we have to be on point, really tight five, maul defence has to be on point, we’re going to have to put our game on them from a scrum point of view.
“We want to put them under pressure in terms of how we attack, as always.
“We want to be out of the line making defenders make decisions and when we do that we generally put people into space.”