Boyd left to rue Saints mistakes in defeat at Sale

And the boss was left to rue an error-strewn performance as his side suffered an 18-13 defeat in the scrappy Gallagher Premiership game.

Tries from Cobus Reinach and Ollie Sleightholme kept Saints in contention until the end as Sale spurned some good scoring opportunities.

Saints did defend well, but the Sharks could have had more than the two Denny Solomona scores they produced.

And Boyd said: "We're disappointed not to get the win but we didn't deserve it to be honest.

"If you make that many mistakes it will cost you in the end.

"Our inability to control our own ball didn't allow us to get our game going and when we did manage to get on the front foot, we invariably coughed it up.

"Inaccuracies and lack of control at the breakdown made it a tough day.

"We won't focus so much on the individual errors because skill errors are skill errors.

"The more interesting thing for me is the way we tried to play the game as it unfolded. There are some pretty important lessons around that in terms of controlling momentum of possession.

"It was painful, but there are some learnings in there."