The time Dylan Hartley decked Brian Mujati at Saints training

One punch from former England captain Dylan Hartley was all it took to shake tighthead prop Brian Mujati out of his comfort zone at Northampton and spur the latter into a new level of competitiveness.

With 12 Springbok caps to his name, Mujati, a Zimbabwean-born South African, made a move north in 2009 from the Stormers, joining up with Northampton Saints, for whom he would eventually turn out on 110 occasions.

Mujati completed what became one of the fiercest front rows in Europe with Hartley and Soane Tonga'uiha covering the hooker and loose-head roles respectively. There was just one problem at the beginning, however, and it had to do with Mujati’s attitude. It was at this point that Hartley – who was captaining the side – decided to address the issue in his own way.

“This is one of my favourite stories about Dyls being a captain, because this needed to happen,” said former Northampton Saints backline player, Ben Foden, in a recent interview.

“Mooj [Mujati], I hope he won’t mind me saying, when he first turned up at Northampton he was there on a jolly. He was like, ‘I’m happy to sit on the bench'.

“We had signed this South African, big unit, he was stacked for a front row. We were like, ‘him and Tonga’uiha are going to change the way we play the game.’ And he turned up, and he was not interested.

“It started to really sink in with people: Who is this guy, sitting on the bus saying ‘I’m happy to get paid my money and sit on the bench.’ I know Dyls heard this and was like, ‘this guy needs to be sorted out.’

“One day in training, Dyls is being a bit niggly. He keeps niggling and trying to get Mooj to bite, and eventually Mooj bites, goes for Dyls, but Mooj doesn’t realise all this backed up aggression in Dyls, who is annoyed because he’s captain of the team and this guy is in his front row, supposed to be a hard-ass dude, and he’s just here on a jolly.

“Mooj sort of goes towards Dyls to threaten it, and Dyls doesn’t even hesitate: boom, wallops him straight in the eye, splits him straight across the eye. I’m in the middle like ‘Woah, what is going on!’ and Mooj is just shocked. You can just see Dyls has got that glint in his eye, like, ‘I’m going to kill you.’

“Mooj is a big dude, and Dyls is a big dude, but I think if you’re looking as an outsider you think Mooj is going to kick Dyls’ ass, but not that day. Dyls was ready to throw down and Mooj was shocked, split his eye. I was in between, telling Mooj to go see the physio and Dyls to calm down, get back into training.

“I’m telling you now, from that moment, I don’t know whether Dyls spoke to Mooj after, but there was something switched inside Brian that made him realise he was there for a bigger job than what he thought.

“He became an unbelievable player for us and a real cornerstone of our scrum. Him and Tonga’uiha sort of gave us that platform to go and win silverware and be competitive.

“I always really respected Dyls for that, that he took it on his shoulders to sort him out.”