Hectic schedule will 'make us earn our corn', says Saints attack coach Vesty

Sam Vesty, Chris Boyd and the rest of the Saints coaches will have to come up with a winning formula

Saints are set to return to action on Sunday, August 16 when they will welcome Wasps to Franklin's Gardens.

There are nine rounds of regular-season games still to go.

The Premiership play-offs are set to follow that, with the final pencilled in for October 24.

Saints will have one of the busiest schedules of any team as they also have a Champions Cup quarter-final at Exeter Chiefs - set to take place on the weekend of September 19 - to fit in.

And attack coach Vesty said: "It will be a different way of working.

"It's going to be very hard on the players, asking them to play that much rugby, but we've got some really good depth.

"If that is the model that is chosen we're in a good place.

"It's going to be interesting getting training groups out there, seeing who can train and who can't.

"We're going to have to earn our corn working out how we're going to train everyone."

Saints, who are set to play midweek matches against Bath, Bristol and Sale, are now ramping up their training at Franklin's Gardens, having been allowed to start Stage 2 last Monday.

That means close contact work is allowed between the group, and Vesty says things are slowly starting to get back to some sort of normality.

"It's getting very much back to where we are before," Vesty said.

"But we're mindful of things like huddles and chats on the training pitch because they are where you would encroach on social distancing almost more than the training bits.

"It's about getting new habits about when we go from one training drill to another, making sure we've got social distancing.

"Most of the training stuff is actually similar and we're starting to build it.

"We're 90 per cent back to what we could do before, but where we can limit risk we still try to limit it."

Excitement will soon start to build at Saints ahead of the resumption.

And Vesty said: "Because of the nature of the training so far, we need to get more contact into the boys and get them used to taking hits.

"But in a couple of weeks, the boys will really start to get excited about playing.

"I'm excited about getting back to it in August."