Boyd praises 'gutsy' Saints after Sixways success

The black, green and gold stayed strong amid some late Worcester pressure to record a valuable 16-10 Gallagher Premiership win.

It ended a run of four successive league defeats ahead of a free weekend next week.

And Boyd was happy with the defensive desire of his side as they held out late on after replacement hooker Sam Matavesi had been sin-binned.

"That game could have been another London Irish or Bristol (Saints were leading against both but lost) because we put ourselves in a difficult situation," Boyd said.

"We coughed up the kick-off, gave away a penalty, went down to 14 men and managed to hold out in the lineout drive.

"It was a gutsy performance, it showed some good character and it was based on a pretty good defensive effort.

"There are some positives in the work ethic but we were still pretty rough.

"People started to get tired and the skill level went away.

"It's interesting the knock-on effect it has when a lot of senior players go away - the skill level and the ability to play under pressure drops away a little bit.

"As we got tired, defence became more important and people started making more mistakes.

"It was just a grind at the end."