Last season's away struggles 'almost irrelevant' as Saints start new campaign at Sale

The black, green and gold only won three times on the road in the league in 2022/23, beating Wasps, Leicester Tigers and Newcastle Falcons.

They were dominant at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens, losing just one Premiership game, to Leicester, but the away form meant they could not secure a home play-off semi-final.

It sent them on the road to Saracens, who eventually prevailed before beating Sale in the showpiece at Twickenham.

Saints are eager to enjoy a home play-off semi-final of their own this season, and head coach Vesty is determined to move on from the previous campaign's away issues.

"It's almost irrelevant, I don't want to make something out of nothing," Vesty said.

"We don't want to change the way we want to play, we want to do what we want to do. We want to do it whether we're at home or whether we're away, I think that's our attitude this year.

"I think we need to be putting our game on the pitch. Whether that be Franklin's Gardens, Sale away, Sarries away, wherever it is, wherever we're playing. It doesn't matter, the pitch dimensions are pretty much the same wherever you are and our attitude is going to be the same wherever we are.

"We will put our game on the pitch, a real physical part of it, good luck to whoever is in front of it and we will have a good ding dong.

"We're going to focus on putting a really strong game out there."

On the bid for a home play-off semi-final, Vesty said: "The statistics show it's the best place to be.

"As a group we've matured nicely. We're still a young group but we're a young group that's grown together for quite a while now.

"With a few recruitment additions, our squad is in a positive place.

"We want to be taking that next step and looking at the top two is absolutely our ambition."

If Saints are to achieve those aims, they are going to have to go into tough environments and win.

And they don't get much tougher than the Salford Community Stadium, a ground at which Saints have not won in the league since 2017.

"They're a very good, strong team," Vesty said.

"They were very good last year. Strong and aggressive defensively. They play a pretty brutal sort of ball-carrying game with a real lively back three and are a counter-attacking team.

"I think they thoroughly deserved where they finished last year and it's a great test for us.

"The fixture gods have smiled on us to give us a real test straight off the bat to see where we're at."

With just 18 league games this season, there is little time to catch up if you fall behind in the standings early on.

And Vesty said: "It's straight off the bat, week one you've to be on your mettle.

"It's such a good competition. It's 10 strong teams, it's such a good product and we should be very proud of the rugby the Premiership puts out there, week in, week out."