London Irish 'anticipate a reaction' from Saints

While Irish racked up a bonus-point win on Gallagher Premiership opening day, seeing off Worcester Warriors, Saints had to make do with a losing bonus point at Sale Sharks.

And Danaher believes that 29-22 defeat will fire Phil Dowson's side up this weekend.

“If you look at the two games from last season (against Saints), we came out on the wrong end of the result on those two occasions, but it still has got the makings of what could be an exciting fixture," Danaher said.

“They played up at Sale Sharks in round one and they might be disappointed with the 10, 15-minute period after half time, but they did well to come away with that bonus point.

“They’ll take some spirit from that and they’ll have their fix-ups, but with it being their first home game, we know the test that it is when you go up to Franklin’s Gardens.

“It was one of my favourite grounds to play at and is still now as a coach, under any team but especially now with Phil Dowson in charge, we anticipate a reaction.

“They’ll show that fighting spirit he had as a player, we’re fully ready and preparing ourselves well for that.”

Irish scored seven tries in their home win against Worcester.

And Danaher said: “It’s been really nice, we’re just getting back into that flow of playing back in the Premiership and it’s been a good few days since.

“We spent Monday reviewing the game from the weekend and it follows a good performance, and we’re obviously very happy to get the five points.

“It was brilliant that Worcester could fulfil the fixture and the nice thing about it is that there is still plenty of stuff for us to work on and grow, especially around the areas that we have been working on in pre-season.

“Defensively, I think we were very good at the weekend and in those first 20 minutes, we put a real marker down.

“The boys have really stepped up and they need to go again this weekend and do the same against Saints.”

Irish currently top the embryonic league table, and they will look to stay at the summit on Saturday.

“We just need to continue to grow what we are doing,” Danaher said.

“As I say, there are areas in pre-season that we have worked hard on, and the lads are fully aware of what they are.

“They need to continue to step up and develop those week in, week out and if we continue to do that, off the back of a lot of good stuff we done last year, we will be looking to head in the right direction.

“Hopefully, we can keep that momentum going with a good performance, irrelevant of the result and we can keep growing against Saints.”