Boyd: Saints won't stray too far away from strongest side for final two games

Boyd steered his side to a 30-25 win against Wasps at Franklin's Gardens last Saturday, having named a largely experienced first 15 and a relatively young bench.

And he is keen to keep starting his senior stars against Exeter Chiefs at the Gardens on Sunday and at Bath on the final day of the season, on June 12.

Boyd said: "We're disappointed not to have finished higher up the league but we've got two tough games coming up.

"We've got Exeter here and we've already done some work on them. Statistically, they're probably the best side in the league so they're an absolute handful and we'll see what's appropriate to do against them.

"Then I think I'm right in saying the only Premiership ground we haven't won at since I've been here is Bath so that's a big, tough assignment as well.

"We've got two tough games and we'd like to finish the season off in fifth place.

"We're guaranteed to be in the Champions Cup now and that's an important factor.

"We might give a couple of guys a run but I don't think we'll stray too far away from what we're doing."

Saints are mathematically out of the race for the top four, with Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs, Sale Sharks and Harlequins guaranteed to contest the end-of-season play-offs.

But Boyd's side are still sitting comfortably in fifth following last Saturday's victory against Wasps, which came courtesy of a Tom Wood try eight minutes from time.

"If Quins, Sale, Bristol and Exeter keep winning, we might have been out of the top four three months ago and we didn't realise it," Boyd said.

"We had been massively disappointed with the two games before the one against Wasps (Saints lost to Gloucester and Newcastle), and there were a lot of reasons why we needed to win on Saturday.

"It would have been a bitter pill to swallow if we'd let it slip in the last 10 minutes, but fortunately we did enough to get home in a pretty tight affair."