Saints 'not celebrating anything yet' after securing place in Premiership play-offs

The black, green and gold produced a fantastic performance as they thrashed Newcastle Falcons 66-5 at Kingston Park last Friday night.

That pushed them seven points clear of London Irish, who needed to win at Saracens last Sunday to retain hope of leapfrogging Saints in the Gallagher Premiership standings.

But Irish were beaten at StoneX Stadium, meaning Saints will definitely finish in the top four.

And they are all but guaranteed to be going to table-toppers Saracens for the play-off semi-final on Saturday, May 13 (kick-off 3.30pm).

However, head coach Vesty is not simply satisfied with making the end-of-season shootout as he wants Saints to go all the way.

“This is such a tough competition and week in, week out anyone can beat anyone so to get into the play-offs two years on the trot is very good, but we’ve got our sights set on going at least one step further than last time, hopefully two," Vesty said.

“We’re not celebrating anything yet.”

So did Vesty watch Saracens beat Irish to confirm Saints' play-off place?

“I was trying not to," he said. "I was cooking Sunday lunch and sort of had my eye on it in the background.

“I kept looking over and the first 20 minutes I thought London Irish fired everything they had at Saracens and actually looked very good.

“Sarries didn’t look to be quite at the races and then suddenly after 20 minutes Saracens really came back into it and were the formidable Saracens you expect to see."

Saints scored 10 tries in their rout of Newcastle, delivering a phenomenal attacking performance.

And Vesty said: "We talked about doing what we do really well and trying to put the best of us out there on the pitch.

“I think we just kept getting off the line in defence and smothered them really well, gave them no time on the ball and kept the tempo really high, really physical, and when we had the ball, they probably gave us a bit too much time.

“I thought we were excellent and obviously pretty clinical as well.”