Saints in good shape to build on success - Darbon

Mark Darbon became Northampton chief executive in the summer of 2017

Northampton Saints chief executive Mark Darbon said everything is in place for sustained success at the club following their Premiership title win.

Saints beat Bath 25-21 at Twickenham to become domestic league champions for the first time in a decade.

Darbon told BBC Radio Northampton's The Saints Show that the team's performances meant the club will be more than £1m better off than they were expecting to be at the start of the season in October.

"There's still a lot of turbulence in rugby more broadly, and we've got some stuff we need to continue to work through, but the on-pitch performance has definitely helped off the pitch and financially, that's for sure," he said.

The match against Bath was the final one in a Saints shirt for England forwards Courtney Lawes and Lewis Ludlam, who are moving to France, and retiring prop Alex Waller.

But a number of players have already agreed new deals, along with director of rugby Phil Dowson and coaches Sam Vesty and James Craig.

"Good teams build on their success and back up success year after year," Darbon said.

"Yes, we are losing some big-name, influential players who have added a huge amount of experience to our squad, but the age profile of our current team is really attractive.

"We are very blessed with the academy pipeline which Mark Hopley and his team are continuing to build, and our recruitment over the last couple of seasons, adding externally when we've needed to add to that academy group, has been really strong."

Darbon said his residual feeling from the Twickenham experience was still "more relief than elation".

He described watching the game, in which Saints were outplayed for much of the second half, as "the least enjoyable 80 minutes of my life".

Planning for next season will begin very soon with the club also buoyed by their commercial success in the 2023-24 season.

"A few things play into that. First and foremost whether we won the Premiership or not, we played good rugby this year and people want to come and watch it," Darbon added.

"The halo impact of getting to the latter stages and ultimately winning, we've sold a load of stuff through our shop in the last few days, champions merchandise, and our season tickets are stronger than they've been at any point in the last five or six years already.

"It's all self-perpetuating when the games are selling out regularly, you need a season ticket or a membership to secure your place. It's a virtuous circle and we've benefitted from that this year."