'They played very well and we were very poor', says Saints boss Dowson

Those were the words of Saints boss Phil Dowson after seeing his side secure a dramatic late 41-38 win against Bath at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens on Saturday evening.

The black, green and gold just about got the job done in front of a sell-out crowd as Fin Smith's penalty with the final kick of the match handed them the full five points.

But they were made to battle all the way by a Bath side that showed wholesale changes from their previous Gallagher PREM win, at home to Harlequins seven days earlier.

Saints had charged into a commanding lead, but just as they had been in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final defeat at Bath 15 days ago, they were pegged back.

This time it wouldn't be Bath who bagged the win late on though as Henry Pollock was hit with a high tackle, earning Saints a penalty, which Smith dispatched to secure the victory.

It moves Saints four points clear of second-placed Bath with four PREM regular season games to go, and crucially it takes them 10 ahead of third-placed Leicester Tigers ahead of the East Midlands derby at Mattioli Woods Welford Road on May 9.

"I'm delighted with the five points because that's what we came after but we're really frustrated with the performance," Dowson said.

"After we played them in Europe, we spoke about our defence and how we wanted to be better, and there was some really good exiting last week (in the win at Exeter) and we were really pleased with some of those elements, then today we just weren't at it as much as we'd like to be.

"What I would say is Bath were excellent, they got in amongst us, we went away from our game and it was a bit like a reverse of our fixture down there (when Saints won 41-21 in December).

"They played very well and we were very poor."

When asked about Saints’ defence, Dowson said: “When we played down there in Europe, there was loads that was good, but we scored 41 points and conceded 43 and fundamentally we’re too easy to score against. That’s what’s keeping games close.

"As soon as they had an opportunity on the 22, they made it to the five, we conceded off tap-and-go penalties – again.

"Our greatest success has come on the back of our set piece and our defence with the attack being the trademark.

"The attack is the thing that the media pick up on but actually as a group, all we talk about is our physicality.

"We spend as much time on our defence as our attack – and throughout this season it’s actually been very good.

"But recently, for whatever reason, and we’ve got to get to the bottom of it – we started that process after Castres – and we haven’t quite got there yet.

"I say to the lads all the time that the game doesn’t lie, it will expose elements of our game that simply aren’t good enough, and that was the case today.

"We’ve got to credit Bath in terms of how good they were, but it’s great because we get to test ourselves every week and we get to see exactly where we’re not good enough. That’s what we’ll go after from a training point of view.

“We obviously haven’t got a game next week but then we’ve got two big games, against Leicester and Bristol, who are both gunning for the top four, so we’ll find our more about ourselves.

"It’s frustrating because I felt we were on a good trajectory in that space, but from a defensive point of view today was maybe a little step backwards from that.”

When asked about the psychological advantage of having ultimately got the job done against Bath, Dowson said: “I think they would probably say psychologically we were robbed.

"It’s been a back and forth all season because the game down there in December was similar to this game, then the game in Europe was a very high quality game.

"It’s two sides who are getting to know each other pretty well and who are playing good rugby so who’s to say when we’ll meet again. It might be next year and then this conversation will be irrelevant.

"The next thing we’ve got to focus on is ourselves, that break week and then into Leicester.”