Saints boss Jim Mallinder hailed his players for proving their critics wrong with a stunning win at Ulster.
Mallinder’s men marched to a massive 10-9 win at Ravenhill on Saturday night to defy the odds and show what they are made of.
Saints had been written off before the game after being thrashed 25-6 by Ulster at Franklin’s Gardens eight days previously.
But a Gerrit-Jan van Velze try and five points from the boot of Stephen Myler secured a magnificent victory against an Ulster side who saw their 13-match winning run crushed.
“We were bitterly disappointed with last week and quite rightly we got as lot of criticism from various places and as a team and as a group we were determined to put that right,” said Mallinder.
“It’s highly frustrating. You’d think the team would be up for a home game against Ulster last week but clearly they weren’t.
“Tonight we saw what we could do.
“Quite a few people have written the team off in terms of not being the side we’ve been but that performance proved we can compete with the top teams in Europe.”
Saints are now five points adrift of Ulster at the top of Heineken Cup pool four, with two games to go.
Northampton host Castres before going to Glasgow, while Ulster must go to France before hosting the Scots.
“It makes it interesting, which is exactly what we wanted it to be,” said Mallinder.
“Ulster have got to play Castres, that’s a difficult game for them, and we can look forward to that.
“At least out of the two games, we’ve got something out of it for us.”
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