Jim Mallinder is under pressure before Ospreys test as Northampton Saints near crisis-club status

Saints face Ospreys on Saturday in the European Champions Cup and their director of rugby Mallinder knows that defeat would see their hopes in the competition all but extinguished

Dylan Hartley spoke frankly about Northampton's troubles (Getty)

While it has been Saracens’ recent travails which have generated most attention, it is the European champions' Pool 2 rivals Northampton who are considerably closer to achieving crisis-club status.

After the heady days of September, when Jim Mallinder’s men briefly topped the Aviva Premiership table and all seemed rosy at Franklin’s Gardens following another underwhelming season last year, the wheels have fallen off in alarming fashion again for the east midlands club.

Five straight league defeats, including last Friday’s 22-24 home loss to Newcastle, have seen them plummet to 10th in the Premiership table, demonstrating the kind of form that puts them in danger of being drawn into a relegation dogfight if they cannot rediscover their winning formula soon. It is also the sort of form which puts coaches' jobs in jeopardy.

On Saturday the focus shifts to the European Champions Cup; a competition hardly promising festive cheer for Saints supporters who have already witnessed their team comprehensively thumped by Saracens and Clermont Auvergne and will see their hopes all but extinguished on Saturday if they lose to the Ospreys.

If a corner isn’t turned soon, the questions over Mallinder’s future will grow even louder after three years of stagnation since the former PE teacher signed a five-year deal after leading Saints to the title in 2014.

There has been hardly a sniff of silverware since.

This week the club captain, Dylan Hartley, one of three England stars to return to the Saints fold against Newcastle without being able to halt the losing run, said the ambitious club was ‘in a hole’.

He is not wrong. With the out-of-sorts Wales wing George North expected to depart for the Dragons next season, and long-serving forwards coach Dorian West also rumoured to be on his way to Newcastle, Mallinder’s power-base appears to be weakening.

Winning will help rebuild it, but that must happen sooner rather than later as another season of underachievement would surely be one too many for Northampton’s board.

Jim Mallinder is under pressure to turn results around (Getty)

“We're in a hole and the only way is to look up,” Hartley said this week. “We've got to climb out, we've got to find a way and when that victory comes it's going to be a sweet one. At the moment every week's difficult. I wholeheartedly believe in the squad, fully. We've got the people, I won't question the guys' commitment.”

With Saracens hosting Clermont 24 hours later, when a bonus-point win could see Mark McCall’s ‘struggling’ team pull six points clear of last season’s defeated finalists at the top, Pool 2 will look a lot clearer come 7.30pm on Sunday. Saracens have suffered a mid-season blip they will surely redress. Northampton’s form indicates a far deeper malaise.

With two defeats from two, Saints are already effectively playing for pride in Europe while Mallinder’s future could also be in the balance, despite having two years left on his contract.

Ironically it is Northampton’s poor performance off the field – in September they registered a £1.2m pre-tax loss for the year ending April 2017 – which could save Mallinder. It is not cheap to sack a director of rugby midway through a contract.

But, with the bitter aftertaste of Alex King’s unexpected axing as backs coach last year still lingering, there is recent evidence the club is prepared to fire if necessary. In that instance it was Mallinder who pulled the trigger. Now he is the one attempting to dodge a bullet.

"This is my 10th season here and in that time we've only changed one member of the coaching staff, so we're fairly stable, but sometimes it's important that you do move on and that's what we've done,” Mallinder said shortly after King’s sacking. "Only time will tell if it was right.”

Mallinder will again be looking to Northampton’s England front-five pair of Hartley and Courtney Lawes to lift the team against the Ospreys, who only narrowly lost to Saracens at Allianz Park in the last round.

Another defeat would leave huge question marks over the director of rugby’s future. The old cliche that you’re judged on results has never been more true. In simple terms, Northampton’s results have been poor for too long.

Mallinder said: “We're not playing anywhere near as well as we have in the past and some of our basics are not right, but we're also not getting the bounce of the ball and all that puts us in the position we are.”

You sense the problems run much deeper than that.