Opposition view: Magnanimous Baxter gives full credit to Saints after final
Rob Baxter was typically magnanimous in defeat as the Exeter Chiefs boss gave full credit to Saints for their Gallagher PREM final win on Saturday.
Baxter's side pushed the black, green and gold all the way in the Allianz Stadium, Twickenham final, producing a ferocious defensive performance.
But Saints eventually broke their resistance during the second half thanks to two quickfire George Hendy tries.
It meant Phil Dowson's men, who topped the regular-season table, were crowned champions of England for the third time in the club's history.
And Baxter said: "Firstly, the most important thing to remember is that finals are about the winners, so you've got to congratulate Northampton. They've had an absolutely fantastic season.
"They had to have a bit of a look at themselves after (finishing eighth in the league) last season - and I know the reasons why: they went deep into Europe and made a bit of a choice there - but they also didn't have the PREM season they wanted and they've addressed some of the things they wanted to address.
"They got here as the top seeds and they've seen it through, so firstly you've got to congratulate them - they've had a great season.
"On ourselves, what can I say? It didn't quite come off for us.
"We had our moments of pressure in the game that we needed to convert to build more points because I don't think you're going to win many PREM finals with 17 points, so we needed a couple more scores."
Both teams were hit with yellow cards for high tackles as Saints lost Josh Kemeny to the sin bin before Exeter skipper Dafydd Jenkins joined him.
Jenkins' yellow card proved costly for Exeter as Saints pounced while he was off the pitch.
But Baxter said: “Daf hasn’t let anyone down. There are missed tackles in the middle of the pitch, the guy is stumbling and Daf is the second line of defence, these things happen.
“I thought the referee (Matthew Carley) was great around head contact. He looked at mitigating factors and found them where he could, that is how you want the head contact process refereed.
"The yellow cards had effects on both teams – it is just what it was.”
Reflecting on the game as a whole, Baxter added: "We had Northampton under pressure deep into the game.
"I will look back on it and go, we must have been pretty good to force Northampton to score two tries out of kicks through that were fairly speculative. One of which we didn’t get our communication right and knocked it out of our own hands, another which was slid through on a pinpoint and was almost too accurate to be just pure skill. It could have rolled either way and that is 12 points there.
“You have to congratulate Northampton for sticking to their policy of how to play.”