Clubs are supposed to see the start of a season as a time of new beginnings, regeneration, something different. No one told either of these two. Saracens looked unplayable at times last term, Northampton unable to play. Over the summer it appears they have taken their respective dynamics and run with them.

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A few bare facts first. Saracens registered their try bonus point in half an hour. They finished the first half with seven tries. They put 40 past the Saints in that period. As for the more emotive stuff, they skipped and thundered in the Twickenham sunshine as if the notion that rugby is a hard ruse to get right were the most preposterous overcomplication of a process as simple and innate as breath.

As for the poor stooges opposite, only the emotive will suffice as apt description of what they suffered. No side should face such humiliation on English rugby’s highest stage, with nine months of a season stretching out before them, let alone one packed with so many internationals, the England captain among them, so too a man who excelled a couple of months ago on a Lions tour of New Zealand.

“It’s infuriating, it’s embarrassing, it’s disappointing,” said the Northampton director of rugby, Jim Mallinder. “You think you prepare properly and you think we had a good pre-season. We thought we were ready for it but clearly we weren’t.”

It has been clear for some time that Northampton’s problems extend far beyond the simplistic notion of how good their players are. The lack of urgency, the lack of snap and cohesion in their approach play, was painful to behold. There were a couple of flashes of pleasing interplay but it felt improvisational, as if by the seat of the pants. When they had the ball with time to think, the ideas, let alone the physical wherewithal to execute them, were nowhere to be seen.

Then Saracens would take a turn – and boom. If Alex Lozowski had his kicking boots on, they would have scored 50 by half-time. Whatever this club does these days, it is right. They went to Bermuda over the summer, which sounds rather nice. Saracens are not afraid of the galvanising piss-up but surely this trip concerned the more Spartan pursuits of pre-season. Whichever, the impression of a bunch of guys relishing their rugby and each other’s company as things to enjoy was unmistakable.

Shall we describe all the tries? Not one of them in that first half was anything other than invigorating and/or imaginative. Some were breathtaking. The best was probably the second, an outrageous break, sparked by Schalk Brits, and furthered by basketball handling between Schalk Burger (thrice), Richard Barrington and Richard Wigglesworth. And when that was stopped in Northampton’s 22 some more offloads set Duncan Taylor on another break and he found Wigglesworth in support for a try between the posts.

Brits’s fleetness of foot continues – at the age of 36 – to astonish. He scored Saracens’ eighth try, early in the second half, breaking the tackle of Harry Mallinder, Northampton’s fly-half for the day, for whom this was as horrible an experience as it must have been for his father, Jim.

Saracens have never been shy of a South African but if Brits is comfortably the favourite, one of the most recent, Vincent Koch, will soon be mounting a challenge. Rock solid in the scrum, he also represents a formidable proposition in attack, albeit more thunderous than fleet-footed. He scored Saracens’ seventh try, just before the break, in typically rambunctious fashion, but it was just the latest of his charges through Northampton’s defence.

By then Sean Maitland had scored a hat-trick, his first another beauty, while his second and third probably represented the height of Northampton’s embarrassment, one from a botched lineout in Saracens’s 22, the other finished after he and Alex Goode had a lengthy chat over which of them should score, so generous was the space they found themselves in with nothing but the ball and the tryline for company.

After an exhibition like that, in the second half came the inevitable flatlining of the contest, which at least gave Northampton a chance to play a bit. Three tries ensued, the best the second, Tom Wood’s first of two, featuring a storming break by Alex Waller and some handling almost Saracens-esque in its deftness. They almost scored a bonus-point fourth themselves.

But it would have meant little. This was a humiliation. And a masterclass from a Saracens side still awaiting the return of four Lions and Billy Vunipola. A thought it is worth ending on.