Phil Dowson slams Saints’ first-half failings after Saracens rout

Northampton director of rugby Phil Dowson bemoaned his side’s first-half efforts after the reigning champions were comfortably beaten 39-24 by Saracens at a sold-out StoneX Stadium.

Saints find themselves 19 points behind league leaders Bath and Bristol, and face an uphill task of reaching the end-of-season play-offs having lost five of their opening eight fixtures.

Northampton had beaten Saracens three times last season, but that run was never look likely to be extended as the visitors conceded 24 unanswered points in an abject first-half performance.

Saints saved face with a much-improved second half, which resulted in Tommy Freeman, Tom Pearson, Archie McParland and Ollie Sleightholme scoring tries, two of which Fin Smith converted, to earn a losing bonus-point.

Fergus Burke scored two tries in a personal tally of 19 points, whiel Rhys Carre, Theo Dan, Ben Earl and Jamie George also crossed for the hosts.

“There may be a 100 reasons to explain that first half effort, but we are not looking for excuses,” Dowson said.

“This game was akin to the Gloucester one, when we didn’t turn up in the first half and there is no apparent reason why.

“We can be physical, but we are not consistently so. It may be that we’ve lost senior players last season and this next wave hasn’t stepped up on a regular enough basis.

“I was annoyed at half-time and we showed what we can do in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the second half, but by then it was too little too late as we need to look at ourselves.”

In contrast, Saracens will be buoyed after their convincing bonus-point victory saw them move up to third.

“The first-half performance was outstanding, especially when we were playing into the gale,” Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said.

“It’s probably the best 40 minutes we’ve had for a long time as everything we did was smart.

“However the second half was frustrating as we went a bit individual and it cost us, and you can’t do that against a side as good as Northampton.

“Our half-backs Fergus (Burke) and Ivan (van Zyl) used the ball very well and were really smart as it was taxing for them being up against England squad half-backs.

“We’ve got some tough fixtures coming up against Bath and Bristol and we’ll need to rotate our squad as we want to do well in Europe as well, but the Premiership is unrelenting as a side as good as Saints are presently eighth and I’m sure that’s not where they want to be.”