Saints set to tweak their team selection policy

Boyd has employed a two-team policy so far, making wholesale changes between matches in a bid to keep his squad balanced and retain freshness.

But Saints have won only once, beating London Irish 27-3 at the Twickenham Stoop last Saturday, while losing home games against Wasps and Bath.

"We will probably tweak our selection philosophy a bit," said Boyd, who made the full 15 changes to the starting side against Bath.

"When we're at full strength we're reasonable.

"We do have good depth, but we've just collectively been a bit sloppy and a little bit inaccurate."

It may be difficult for Saints to change too much though as player welfare has to be considered and two teams have been put in place for matches.

It means that while some were preparing for Bath on Wednesday, others were shaping up to face Harlequins at the Twickenham Stoop on Sunday.

And sixth-placed Saints, who missed the chance to move into the top four on Wednesday, know they must get a win to keep themselves in the hunt in the Premiership.

"We've already selected the team for Harlequins but we'll tweak that slightly," Boyd said.

"They lost to Worcester on Wednesday night with a very inexperienced team so it clearly looks like they're going to be full strength on Sunday.

"We're going to have to go down there and work very hard to get a result.

"We've just got to keep working."

And Saints know they must eliminate the mistakes that continue to blight them if they are to claim a second Stoop success in the space of just eight days.

"It's a bit of a recurring theme at the moment that we're gifting teams points through basic errors," said Boyd, who saw his side suffer a fifth defeat in as many Premiership home games in 2020 on Wednesday night.

"We get a bit of momentum and then someone tries to get an offload away and it doesn't work so we've got to be a little bit more accurate, a little bit more clinical and a little bit more patient.

"No one likes losing and no one likes a losing streak.

"The thing I can hang my hat on is that everyone is very disappointed with the performance and certainly very disappointed with the outcome against Bath.

"We've just got to roll our sleeves up and work hard."

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