Good is the word Dylan Hartley eventually settles on when asked how his right hand was after bruising kept him out of action for three weeks. He takes his time before replying having just received a meaty handshake from a reporter who, prompting a grimace, has had to apologise, saying he had forgotten about the injury.
“Are you a Saracens’ supporter?” Hartley asks him, while offering his left hand to others occupying seats in the main stand at Franklin’s Gardens. The England and Northampton captain is in the mood to joke as he looks ahead to Sunday evening’s European Champions Cup home match against the holders, Saracens.
Meetings between these clubs this decade have developed an abrasiveness more associated with derbies. It started in 2010 when Sarries won a Premiership play-off match at Northampton and upset their hosts with an after-match song that was raucously chanted. Saracens have won 11 of the 18 league meetings between the sides since then, although the Saints beat them in the 2014 Premiership final thanks to Alex Waller’s try in the final minute of extra time.
A year later, the sides met in the semi-final at Franklin’s Gardens. Saracens won and Hartley was cited for a headbutt on his opposite number, Jamie George, and received a ban long enough to cost him a place in the 2015 World Cup squad and earn George a call-up. The two have since become the rivals at hooker for England, Hartley starting all 19 Tests under Eddie Jones, with George occupying the bench for 14 of them. George missed the two in Argentina this summer because he was with the British & Irish Lions in New Zealand, where he started all three Tests. The duel between the two is one of Saturday evening’s intriguing subplots: Courtney Lawes and Maro Itoje both start at blindside flanker and Wales’s Lions, George North and Liam Williams, are on the right wings.
Jones, who revels in creative tension, will be among the spectators. He said last month that Hartley would remain as captain for the first of the three autumn internationals at Twickenham, against Argentina on 11 November, as long as his form merited inclusion. George scored a hat-trick of tries for Saracens against Wasps last weekend, the day after Hartley’s return for Northampton, who lost at Gloucester. Jones values Hartley’s leadership, a player in his own image, competitive, feisty and forceful, but may feel that George, whose 17 caps have all come off the bench, merits a start against Samoa at the end of the November series.
So does he have a cordial relationship with George? “To me cordial is squash, juice,” Hartley replies. “We have got a good working relationship. I look forward to the challenge but it is not about me and him. I am aware you guys would like it to be about that, a pretty good headline for you. We are team-mates in another environment; it works. Nothing comes easy [in international rugby]; everything is earned and I wouldn’t expect it to be any other way.”
His hand is still swollen but with big European matches against Saracens and Clermont Auvergne coming up before the England squad gather, he is not going to sit around longer than he has to. “I could have come back a week earlier, but the medical advice was that it would be right last weekend,” says Hartley, who is Northampton’s captain again after two years in the ranks. “I got through with flying colours, except for the result.”
Results in the two years Hartley was not captain were mixed for Northampton. Having finished at the top of the table in 2014-15, they have not qualified for the play-offs since and in the Champions Cup last season they conceded 127 points in their three away matches. They started this campaign with their heaviest defeat to Saracens in the Premiership, but rallied with four victories to head the table before losing at Kingsholm.
“It’s been six weeks since we got a hiding from Saracens, and that was about us being at one end of the scale and them being at the other,” he says. “They were white hot and we were not. We’ve made some big gains as a squad, so to get another shot to test ourselves again against the European champions and league leaders is a good opportunity for us to see where we’re at. We went into the game on the back of a good pre-season. Everything looked fine, but a humbling defeat like that sends you back to the drawing board.
“It is obvious that we will get up for a home game against Saracens, but if we want to be better as a team we have got to go away and play good, solid rugby, nothing flash. We showed at Gloucester we can score good tries, but when you concede after a couple of phases, that is not basic rugby. You cannot expect to get up for it at home and hope for the best away.
“There is big excitement for the Saracens game. We have had a good rest and got into some clay pigeons as a team so we had a day’s less training. We love playing at Franklin’s Gardens and we fought really hard for our place in the Champions Cup. We extended what was a poor season by our standards by two games in May [with the Champions Cup play-offs] and took something from it, top-flight European rugby. We respect our opponents, but we know that if we turn up on match day we can give anyone a good game. We have some great players in our squad and are building nicely: it is a matter of putting it all together.”
With Hartley warmed up comes the England question. “I’m not an England player, I’m an aspiring England player,” he says. “If I play well for my club, as an aspiring England player would, I’ll give myself a shot. Eddie has made it clear he’s not just picking players because of what they’ve done. It’s got to be earned.”
Asked if being the England captain gives him an advantage, he replies: “Aspiring England captain. It’s on me to set an example. I need to be playing well, so I’ll try and score a hat‑trick this weekend.”
