'Back to the drawing board' for Saints after big defeat at Exeter

Dowson's side had headed to take on Exeter Chiefs on the back of a 46-17 win against Harlequins six days earlier.

But they never came close to replicating those performance levels against the Chiefs, who cruised to a 35-12 win.

"The energy we had in the week was very good on the back of the Quins performance, but we didn't back it up," Dowson said. "That's what the really good sides do and we need to work out how we get more out of that performance today.

"It was very disappointing. They got in amongst us and we knew that was coming. We knew there would be a reaction from their game at Saracens last week (Exeter lost 35-3 at StoneX Stadium) but we didn't cope with it, we didn't make good decisions and we were very inaccurate in what we were trying to do.

"It's back to the drawing board to make sure we find that ever-elusive consistency."

Saints were 21-0 down at half-time and they only had two tries to shout about at the end, with Fraser Dingwall and Matt Proctor scoring after the break.

"Exeter came out of the traps and put us under huge pressure," Dowson added.

"What we did really well against Quins was that we played through that, we won collisions and went forward. I didn't feel we did that enough today, and that put us under massive pressure because then we were trying to force it and move the ball when we haven't earned the right to.

"We came unstuck.

"We put a plan in place to deal with the conditions and in the first half we didn't manage to do that, in terms of playing with the ball more, putting in contestable kicks, counter-attacking more in that space.

"There are loads of things we can get better at in that tactical element and we need to work out why that hasn't come through in the game after training."