NORTHAMPTON Saints showed why they are the team to aspire to, admitted Gloucester director of rugby David Humphreys after the reigning Aviva Premiership champions romped to victory over the Cherry and Whites.

George North grabbed a hat-trick inside 50 minutes, but those were just three of the home side's eight tries on Friday evening.

Luther Burrell scored twice, while George Pisi, Kahn Fotuali'i and Jon Fisher also crossed over as a new-look Gloucester struggled to cope with their rampant hosts.

And Humpreys, who arrived at Kingsholm from Ulster this summer, conceded Gloucester were not ready to go toe-to-toe with last year's champions.

"Northampton are the team we aspire to play like – the success they have had over the last few years and the consistency of their performances," said Humphreys, who’s side’s only points came from a penalty apiece from Greig Laidlaw and James Hook.

"If we want to compete with them, we have a huge amount of work to do.

"We have said for the last couple of months that we would know where we are the first 80 minutes of the season and I think we showed the difference between the team that finished first and the team that finished ninth last year.

"There was always the potential for this to happen. We hoped it wouldn't and we prepared for it not to happen but on the night Northampton were very good and we have a huge amount of work to do.

"We were playing against the champions of England and we will go away next week and prepare for the next game.

"We just didn't know how quickly the team would gel. We saw tonight there are elements of the game we did well and there are elements of the game we have to put a huge amount of work into."