Northampton Saints head to France looking for their first victory in this season's Heineken Cup.

Last season's beaten finalists have been on the wrong end of a last ditch win by Munster in Ireland and suffered at the hands of a rampant Scarlets side at Franklin's Gardens.

The Premiership side, who were crowned Heineken Cup champions in 2000, face French side, Castres, in the first of their Pool 1 back-to-back clashes at the Stade Pierre Antoine on Saturday.

The French side will still have ambitions of their own in the Pool but will be more than aware they have to record emphatic wins if they are to keep those ambitions alive in this season's Heineken Cup.

Castres were robbed of a home victory over Munster by a last ditch drop goal by Ronan O'Gara and suffered a defeat an away defeat to the Scarlets in the Pool 1 opener

The teams:

Castres: 15 Romain Teulet, 14 Romain Martial, 13 Thomas Sanchou, 12 Seremaia Bai, 11 Max Evans, 10 Rémi Tales, 9 Rory Kockott, 8 Chris Masoe, 7 Steve Malonga, 6 Ibrahim Diarra, 5 Rodrigo Capo Ortega, 4 Scott Murray, 3 Luc Ducalcon, 2 Marc-Antoine Rallier, 1 Michaël Coetzee.
Replacements: 16 Mathieu Bonello, 17 Anton Peikrishvili, 18 Rossouw Kruger, 19 Matthias Rolland, 20 Yannick Caballero, 21 Paul Bonnefond, 22 Pierre Bernard, 23 Thierry Lacrampe.

Northampton: 15 Ben Foden, 14 Vasily Artemyev, 13 George Pisi, 12 Tom May, 11 Jamie Elliott, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson, 8 Samu Manoa, 7 Ben Nutley, 6 Tom Wood, 5 Mark Sorenson, 4 Courtney Lawes, 3 Paul Doran Jones, 2 Dylan Hartley (captain), 1 Soane Tonga'uiha.
Replacements: 16 Mike Haywood, 17 Alex Waller, 18 Brian Mujati, 19 James Craig, 20 James Ingle, 21 Martin Roberts, 22 Ryan Lamb, 23 Jon Clarke.

Date: Saturday, December 10
Kick-off: 14:30 (13:30 GMT)
Venue: Stade Pierre Antoine
Referee: John Lacey (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Michael Black (Ireland), Trevor Collins (Ireland)
TMO: Marshall Kilgore (Ireland)