Frustrating time for Boyd as he knows Saints can do so much better

And the black, green and gold boss believes inexperience is partially to blame for recent results.

Saints have opted to split their squad, naming two separate teams to deal with a hectic schedule since rugby returned last month.

But their selections haven’t paid dividends as they have only won one of their four matches, beating London Irish but losing to Wasps, Bath and Harlequins.

The 30-17 defeat against Quins at The Stoop last weekend came with a youthful but talented team.

And Saints were made to pay for persistent errors that cost them field position as Quins racked up a bonus-point success.

It means Boyd’s side remain sixth and are now just three points ahead of seventh-placed Quins.

The chances of Saints making the top four are now extremely slim ahead of Friday night’s Franklin’s Gardens fixture against runaway leaders Exeter Chiefs.

And when asked whether this was the toughest time he has experienced since arriving at Saints from the Hurricanes in the summer of 2018, Boyd said: “It’s the most frustrating because I know we can do so much better but we’re just showing a little bit of our vulnerability around a little bit of our inexperience.

“If this group can stay together and instead of having five or 10 or 15 or 20 caps and we’ve got a dozen guys on the field who have got 100 caps, it will be a different group of players.

“Just at the moment we’re not tough enough on ourselves with our decision making and our errors.

“It’s a bit of a recurring theme at the moment and the top-four flame has become a flicker.

“It’s very disappointing for the whole group and for the club because we had much bigger aspirations than losing three games out of four post-Covid, but we haven’t been good enough.

“We’ve been loose in our execution and ill-disciplined in the game.

“Our decision making has been a bit variable.

“We try hard but we might have to simplify it and try something different.”

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