If Paul Grayson needs a positive thought at Twickenham tomorrow, he has only to remember that good things supposedly come in threes. This week has already seen a double for the Northampton fly-half, with his wife giving birth to twins on Monday. A cup final victory against London Irish would round it off perfectly.

The babies were delivered by Caesarean section, which enabled Grayson to make the final. "We knew for a while that they were going to take them out and that it would be between the 12th and the 19th but it wasn't until we got into the final that that came up as a potential stumbling block."

The decision to deliver was taken by doctors because one of the twins was growing faster than the other - "he'd pulled out a couple of pounds ahead and they didn't want to let that continue" - rather than to ensure Grayson's presence in the final, as was reported on Northampton's official website.

"My mind was totally made up that, if it had gone to the end of the week, I'd have dropped out and let the boys get on with it, to be with my wife. But they made the decision for us that it would be the start of the week."

The Saints' director of rugby, John Steele, and the head coach, Wayne Smith, are fathers of twins themselves, and the former England No10 has found the club supportive. "Wayne came to me and said to take time off, the first couple of days, so I haven't been juggling."

If Grayson is currently on something of a roll off the pitch, his fortunes have gone hand in hand with those of the club on it too. The Saints are marching in perfect step towards tomorrow's meeting with the Exiles, having put 50 points past Gloucester last weekend and scored their first win for 25 years at Bath a fortnight before, and their fly-half is contemplating a contract for the next two years.

The arrival of the twins is the only thing that Grayson could have predicted with any certainty last autumn, when the fly-half and his club were both in the doldrums after a disastrous start. Northampton were out of Europe, close to the bottom of the table, and Grayson was contemplating the end of his career at the age of 30 after travelling on England's summer tour of North America as a kicking coach.

"You put coach next to your name and people think it's not going to be long until you tip off the edge. At that time I believed what people were telling me, that it was time to pack it in. If you get told something often enough, you start to believe it. It becomes almost brainwashing. I was playing full-back; I was third-choice fly-half here, although I didn't feel it was the right pecking order."

Smith was not even sure if Grayson was still playing before he arrived at Franklin's Gardens in early December. "I thought he was over the hill," he says. "I knew he wasn't playing much and I thought probably he wasn't committed to it but he soon put that right. He looked me in the eye and told me nothing could be further from the truth. He was hungry and would show me."

There has clearly been a meeting of minds with the former All Blacks coach. "I have a special way I like fly-halves to play and he was the only one I could see who could do it," Smith adds. "He has outstanding co-ordination, he has a good head on his shoulders, he's very brave - he made 19 tackles against Bath - and he can apply a game plan because he's bright."

If Grayson feels Smith has changed "just about everything - the way we play, the way the backs line up, the structure of the game" - he feels there is one key ingredient in the Saints' resurgence: "It all comes with confidence.

"Suddenly the team feels tighter but all that comes from the changes which Wayne has made. He knows what he wants, he tells you what he wants and that's always been a big thing for me. If I'm given direction and a game plan, I can implement it."

Success tomorrow, Grayson feels, is vital if Saints are to build on their resurgence. "We need to achieve something. Leicester achieve all the time and we want to develop a culture that's the same," he says.

His state could be described as blissful but it is not merely domestic bliss: "I remember him [Smith] saying 'Go out and play', and I did. It's been a joy, an absolute joy."

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