Attack the best form of defence for Saints, says two-try Mitchell

Mitchell delivered a razor-sharp display, scoring twice before the break with a brace of fantastic finishes.

Saints were 25-14 up at half-time and rather than let London Irish back into the game - as they did when losing to Ulster on the previous weekend - the hosts kicked on to register a bonus-point 44-26 Gallagher Premiership success.

And Mitchell said: "It was an unstructured game and I was blowing in that first 10 minutes, but we like to play with tempo and move the ball from side to side, and so do they.

"It was a good game to play in and we're obviously pleased to get the result.

"We were frustrated with our defence in that first half with a few missed tackles but our structure was good and it was just those individual tackles that let us down.

"It was a bit frustrating for them to get a couple of tries late on but it's one of those that we'll work on next week.

"Sometimes we just panic in that last 10 minutes and try to shut up shop but that's not what we're good at.

"We want to still move the ball and the best way to defend is to attack and score more tries so we're going to focus more on that."