Fraser Dingwall does not want his Northampton Saints side to become a fair-weather team, after they fell 28-7 to Leicester Tigers in torrid conditions at Mattioli Woods Welford Road.
Saints had bettered their hosts in the first 40 minutes, with James Pater’s opportunistic score putting them 7-3 up at the break. But in the hounding winds and lashing rain, Northampton struggled to maintain any momentum after the restart and Tigers capitalised, scoring 25 unanswered points to take home the Derby Day bragging rights.
And, for Dingwall, it is Saints’ ability to react to the conditions, and make the most of what little chances they were presented with, that the men in Black, Green and Gold must improve upon.
“Leicester are very good at [playing in the wet] and it’s something we have to be better at because during the year you can’t always have perfect conditions,” said the Saints skipper.
“You’ve got to go and win in different conditions because that’s how a team is great: if they find different ways to win, irrespective of what the weather is doing, what the opposition is doing. It should be based around how the team can adapt and perform.”
It really was a game of two halves for Northampton, with their staunch defence – that had held Leicester to only the three points Freddie Steward’s long-range penalty could provide at the break – translating into ill-discipline and compounding errors in the second half.
Saints had shown pockets of promise in that arduous second 40 minutes, with the likes of Ion Neculai’s turnover and subsequent break or George Hendy’s searing run down the left getting them front-foot ball.
But ultimately Northampton couldn’t convert that promise into points, and it was that change in momentum that frustrated Dingwall the most.
He said: “A lot of the frustration comes from the second half really.
“In the first half we put ourselves in a really good spot, we were doing a lot of good stuff, managing the conditions, managing the game well and winning a lot of moments.
“But then in the second half I didn’t think we really won any moments, and the ones we did we didn’t back them up.
Dingwall continued: “You look at the difference between the halves and we won the aerial contest in the first half, but they won it in the second half.
“They won the floor second half, the set-piece battle and, unfortunately, they got a roll on us.
“The ones that annoy me the most are the ones that are within our control, and the opportunities we gave them through discipline are the big frustrations.
“Naturally in this league there are going to be times when teams do things well and they are able to get territory and momentum, but to give them easy opportunities, those are things we can't do.
“The soft penalties give them field position and belief and that feeds the whole of their machine to roll on top of you.
“At 7-3, with scoreboard pressure, if you don’t give them those opportunities it naturally becomes tighter and we’re more in the game. It doesn’t give them that energy.
“A lot of the game is built around momentum and how teams are feeling psychologically and a lot of that comes down to field position, energy and how disciplined you can be because you can’t give people opportunities.
“It’s about how good our messaging can be, how good we can be at wresting back that momentum.
“As a leadership group, I thought we messaged really well across the first half and the second half. But ultimately you’ve got to get actions and a shift in behaviour where you win small moments and stack a few on top of each other to become a big thing.”