Woods hails Saints pack power
Tom Wood is enjoying life as part of the Northampton Saints pack.
He declared himself satisfied with how Saints worked the new law directives at the breakdown after an opening day win over champions Leicester.
And he also praised his colleagues for their efforts in an 'underrated' pack.
Wood said: "I thought it went all right with the new rules.
"It is always a bit shaky when new rules come in and you are not sure how the referee is going to interpret it.
"You don't want to stand off because the other team might get the advantage.
"But you don't want to go in hard and give away too many penalties.
"I think we felt our way in and did all right."
After a season of struggle with Worcester, Wood loved playing in a side with so many powerful runners that puts Saints on the front foot.
But behind the likes of Soane Tonga'uiha there are always team-mates ready to smash the ruck for more quick ball.
"The onus isn't on everybody to carry," said Wood.
"You need to stand up when you are needed and you need those carriers.
"But you need guys putting their head over the ball and clearing rucks as well.
"There is a lot of honest hard-working, under-rated players in this
Saints pack.
"Everybody was good, everybody held their hand up and got us going forward out there.
"We were a little bit nervous when we lost a man and the momentum shifted, you can never write off the Tigers.
"They were always going to throw the kitchen sink at us, I'm just glad we held in there."
After beating the champions with a superb performance of high-class running rugby, it would be easy to get carried away.
Director of rugby Jim Mallinder and his coaches will make sure that doesn't happen.
And new-boy Wood has already learned the mantra of 'one game at a time' when any talk of Saints winning the Premiership is mentioned.
"We have definitely got ambitions," said Wood. "We are just taking each game as it comes.
"We have had a great day beating Leicester but now we have to concentrate on Harlequins."
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Weather for Kettering
Monday 13 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 7 C
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Temperature: 4 C to 7 C
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