Northampton Saints and England Under-20s fullback James Pater has penned a new contract to remain in Black, Green and Gold beyond the current campaign, the Club can today announce.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old \u2013 who has also featured on the wing and at fly-half for Saints this season \u2013 made his senior debut in May 2025, appearing in the Club\u2019s final Gallagher PREM match of the 2024\/25 season while still a student at Leys School.<\/p>\n
Pater has since graduated from Saints\u2019 Academy into the senior squad, and has gone on to make a further seven appearances across all competitions during his first term of professional rugby, scoring 32 points in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a local lad and coming through the Academy here has been an amazing experience, so I\u2019m really happy to be staying on at Saints,\u201d said Pater.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe coaches have invested in me from an early stage and shown a lot of faith in me as a young player, which has been massive. Saints is the right place for me to develop, particularly because of the opportunities the Club gives to younger players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe chances I\u2019ve already had this season have been incredible, and being trusted to put my name forward for more big games \u2013 even at my age \u2013 is something I couldn\u2019t turn down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe squad here is hugely talented. This year I\u2019ve been able to learn from the likes of George Furbank and George Hendy, who have followed the same Academy-to-first-team pathway, which is massive for my development. Watching that journey and seeing what\u2019s possible really motivates me, it\u2019s a well-trodden path here at Saints.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve also learned a lot from players who\u2019ve come in from different backgrounds, like Anthony Belleau and Fin Smith. Understanding how they see the game and move the ball has helped me shape my own approach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northampton Saints and England Under-20s fullback James Pater has penned a new contract to remain in Black, Green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-542994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}