Ospreys vs Northampton Saints preview: Luther Burrell champing at the bit

Centre knows assured display on Sunday could get him back into England team

Middle man: Saints’ centre Luther Burrell shows his power on the break (Getty Images)

Luther Burrell has accumulated a starry collection of swapped jerseys during his 12 months as an England international, and with a series of big matches for club and country looming, the Northampton centre has designs on adding a few more. “I’ve got Conrad Smith’s from New Zealand, Brian O’Driscoll’s and Mathieu Bastareaud’s, which is pretty big,” said Burrell, picturing the frames on his kitchen and lounge walls.

“We have got Jamie Roberts just around the corner with Racing Metro – and [Wales’s] Jonathan Davies didn’t give me his [last year] so I shall be after one of those, potentially.”

Burrell is a late developer who made his Test debut, at 26, against Bastareaud and France last February. If he appears to have pencilled himself into the England team to face Davies and Wales in Cardiff on 6 February, ahead of Northampton’s trip across the border to face Ospreys in the European Cup today, he also makes it clear that he cannot afford a repeat of last weekend’s flawed performance at Sale.

“I left the field feeling very disappointed,” he said. “I need to be better than that. But I take it as a positive that I don’t normally knock the ball on, I don’t normally miss tackles. I’ll strip my game down, back to my basics, and really go for it this week.”

Ospreys are unbeaten in their nine matches at the Liberty Stadium this season, although one was a draw in Europe against Racing Métro. Bracketed with the losses away to Northampton and Racing, it has left the Welsh region playing catch-up in Pool Five. For this afternoon’s meeting of the leaders of the Guinness Pro 12 and Aviva Premiership, the Ospreys will field a ball-playing, Fijian-Welsh centre combo of Josh Matavesi and Ashley Beck, outside the incumbent Wales half-backs Rhys Webb and Dan Biggar. The visitors, who conclude the pool at home to Racing next Saturday, have Dylan Hartley back as hooker and captain after his three-week ban for elbowing, and Burrell is thankful for that. “Dylan is a huge team player, he’s not a selfish bloke.

“He’s really excited about being back playing, and hopefully not being red-carded or yellow-carded or [receiving] any more bans, because I think he’s sick to death of it. He wears his heart on his sleeve, Players are going to get at him, but I think he will be absolutely fine. I don’t think he will rise to it.”

Players on both sides will consider a top performance to be particularly timely, with Warren Gatland and Stuart Lancaster respectively announcing the Wales and England squads for the Six Nations Championship on Tuesday and Wednesday. Centre is a vexed position for Lancaster.

Burrell had a brilliant knack for popping up in the right place with three tries in his breakthrough Six Nations but it deserted him in the summer and autumn. Having helped Northampton win the Premiership final in May, he made a delayed start to England’s tour of New Zealand and was given the runaround by Ma’a Nonu in the second Test, and dropped to the bench. Then he lost his place all together for England’s November internationals after injuring a hand in October. Last month’s dramatic display of 17 carries and umpteen tackles against Leicester – when Saints played with only one centre following Hartley’s sending-off – helped rebuild his reputation.

“That performance as two centres in one was outstanding,” said Alex King, Northampton’s backs’ coach. “Luther is definitely more of a player than just an up and down basher; he has more subtlety than that. ”

The last word goes to Burrell. “A couple of weeks ago Stuart [Lancaster] gave me a phone call, and we had a bit of a chat. He’s very approachable. You can sit down and chew his ear off for an hour or two. For a player like myself who has only seven caps, it’s always healthy to have that relationship with the big boss man. He wants everybody to be heard.”

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