Sam Graham: Northampton Saints showed 'physical edge' in Sale loss

There was a tough physical battle between the packs at the Salford Community Stadium

Northampton back row Sam Graham believes Saints showed they are up "for a fight" this season despite narrowly losing their opening Premiership game.

They were beaten 20-15 at Sale, despite keeping the Sharks scoreless in the second half.

It was a repeat of the 2022-23 season when Saints went down 29-22 against the same opponents in their first match.

"We managed to put the way we want to play on to the pitch for a large majority of the game," said Graham.

"For 90% of that game we did everything we needed to win and it's just gutting that we didn't.

"We still managed to run them ragged but brought that physical edge that we need. I think particularly our D [defence], a lot of it was very pleasing," he told BBC Radio Northampton.

Saints were without five players who are away at the World Cup in France - three for England and two for Fiji - but the same was also the case for Sale, who put three tries on the board in the first half to Northampton's one.

"We knew we were coming here for a fight and we got that, exactly what we wanted, and that's the sort of challenge that we needed to kickstart our season," said Graham.

"We've come out on the wrong side of the result but that's going to stand us in really good stead going forward.

"They are a very good team, all credit to them, but today was all about us and what we can bring to the table."

Northampton play their first home league game of the season against Bristol on Saturday, having lost 39-38 to them in a thrilling Premiership Rugby Cup match last month.

Graham added: "All roads lead to Bristol now. We've got to move on to the next one pretty quickly.

"They've got different threats but we're going to come with the same mentality that we're here for a fight and we're not going to go away for 80 minutes."