Saints’ attacking stars ready to take responsibility

Kahn Fotuali’i, Stephen Myler and Ben Foden were the men fronting up and fielding questions about the team’s lack of tries.

Saints have only scored one in their past four matches - that was a gift to Luther Burrell, who intercepted George Ford’s poor pass at Bath - and they have only registered two at Franklin’s Gardens this season.

So just why have the backs not quite managed to cash in so far?

“We just need to be a bit more clinical,” said fly-half Stephen Myler.

“We are creating opportunities for ourselves, but we’ve just not been capitalising.

“We need to not overthink it and just go out and play what we see.

“When we get those opportunities, we know we need to cherish them and make the other team pay because we’ve just been a bit guilty of letting teams off the hook when we’ve got in the position to do something.”

And Samoan scrum-half Fotuali’i knows he and the backs owe the team’s bigger men one for their work in recent weeks.

“The forwards have really been dominating and the backs need to really step up and take some ownership,” said Fotuali’i, who admitted his own form has been ‘pretty average’.

“We need to make the right decisions, be accurate in what we’re doing and take opportunities.

“We create chances but just don’t finish them off.

“The forwards do a lot of hard work and we need to complement them.

“We’ve got a very exciting backline, even the guys coming off the bench, but we’ve just got to be switched on, play some good rugby and get some enjoyment as a unit. There’s definitely the belief there.

“We just need to execute what we’re doing.”

Saints, who, with seven, have scored the lowest number of tries in the league, should fancy their chances of scoring a few at London Irish this weekend.

The men from the Madejski Stadium currently sit bottom of the Aviva Premiership table having failed to win a single game this season and having shipped more tries than any other team, conceding 24 so far.

But Myler said: “I don’t think that’s a fair reflection of what their squad is.

“They’ve got some dangerous players and we always have a tough game when we go down to their place.

“It’s one where we need to respect them and put our best foot forward.

“We’re going to have to

play well to get anything out of the game - it’s as simple as that.

“However many games a team’s won in the season, if they play their best and we don’t, they’re going to beat us.

“We need to go there and play well.”