Langdon would love England call but puts full focus on big Saints clash

The likes of Alex Mitchell, Tommy Freeman and George Furbank have been flying high, and so is Curtis Langdon.

Regular watchers of Saints will be sure Langdon has done enough to force his way into the Red Rose reckoning.

A player who so often feels like the heartbeat of the team, the hooker has been a revelation since making the move from Montpellier last summer.

But he is just focused on keeping his head down at Saints, while admitting he would love to add to the two England appearances he secured during the summer of 2021.

"I'd probably be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it (playing for England) a little bit," Langdon said.

"It's obviously something I really want to do and it's a squad I really want to be back involved with but I'm trying not to think about it too much.

"I'm just focusing on playing well here, getting those wins and staying at the top of the table and achieving something in the Champions Cup.

"Hopefully if we're doing as well as I knew we can here, I'll get another opportunity to play for England."

Langdon has been in fantastic form as Saints have racked up seven successive wins in all competitions.

And he will try to help them extend that winning streak to eight when they host Bayonne in an Investec Champions Cup clash on Friday night.

"I'm looking forward to Franklin's Gardens being busy again on Friday night," Langdon said.

"It's a big game for us, having won at Glasgow and winning here against Toulon. We want to build on that this weekend and get a good win against Bayonne ahead of going to Munster.

"We're going for that home last 16 tie."

Having played in France for the majority of last season, Langdon was able to learn a little of the language.

But he insists he doesn't know enough to help Saints crack any Bayonne codes on Friday night.

"I played at Bayonne last season with Montpellier," Langdon said. "It's a cool place to play. A nice part of France.

"I'm familiar with them. They've got a good 10 who runs the game really well for them.

"Their hooker, Vincent Giudicelli, was actually at Montpellier with me last year so we played a few games and trained against each other all season so it will be good to hopefully play against him on Friday night.

"I actually messaged him on Monday. I started speaking to him in French but he came back to me in French and I had to use Google translate.

"I'll be able to ask how many numbers they've got in the lineout in French, but not much more than that to be honest.

"I can't crack any codes!"

Langdon added energy from the bench last weekend as Saints stormed back from 26-0 down to beat Exeter Chiefs 42-36 in a thriller at Sandy Park.

And he said: “Winning rugby is awesome and you feel good going into the next week. There's always more energy in training.

"I'm just really enjoying it and we're getting into games we need to win if we want to kick on and achieve what we want to this season.

"We've got this game this week that we need to win if we want to kick on in the Champions Cup and obviously after this block we'll have Newcastle, which is a big game at home. If we want to keep our spot at the top of the table, it's a game we want to get five points from.

"Although we're winning and things are going really well, we need to keep the standards high in training and making sure we're putting in the performances at the weekend to make sure we don't have an off week and then we're not having these positive conversations through the week."