Opposition view: Lam loves Saints' style, but less impressed by his Bristol side

But Lam was less impressed by the performance of his own side as they fell to a 45-31 defeat at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens on Saturday afternoon.

Bristol had gone 7-0 up early on, but four tries in 18 first-half minutes put Saints in control at the break.

The Bears did keep battling, earning their own try bonus point in the second period, but that was all they took away from their trip to Northampton.

And former Saints skipper Lam said: “They (Saints) are a good side, I love the way they play, but we were losing ball that gave them easy ins.

“At 31-7 at half-time it was not looking good. We had to believe and work our way back, but a couple more turnovers made the job harder.

“We had a lot of opportunities that we blew.

“We were chasing the whole game, but a lot of it was us gifting Saints opportunities and we paid the price for it.

"We gave them possession that they didn’t need to have.

"We have to dust ourselves off, get back up and go again.

"All we can control is what we do, and we had a lot of opportunities in that second half.”