After coming close to beating two of the best sides in Europe over the last couple of weeks, Jamie Gibson says that Saints just need to tighten up a little bit to get the results they need.
A tough test against local rivals Wasps on Saturday has left Saints with just one win to their name all season, despite impressive physicality at Allianz Park previously and attacking intent on home soil this weekend.
But Gibson says the men in black, green and gold needs to focus of the positives from both games and work on taking the opportunities when they arise to ensure a win against Exeter on Friday night.
“It’s easy to get down straight after a game when you feel you could have won it but then when you look back on it, we’re not far off,” he commented.
“Just the odd pass here and there, the ball hitting the floor when it shouldn’t have done, a couple of decisions that should have been made or shouldn’t have been made and we get to the end of the game and we’ve lost.
“But we don’t need to tear the whole play book up, we don’t need to go out and say ‘what are we doing, we need to change the game completely’, we just need to go on doing what we’re doing at the moment and just finish our opportunities and tighten up a little bit.”
Looking ahead to the next job in hand, the flanker said that if Saints combine the best bits of their games against Saracens and Wasps they can produce a win over their guests on Friday.
“I think we’ll need a bit of both performances to beat Exeter," he added. "They’ve got players that can hurt, as Wasps do, but they’re a little bit tighter, a little more physical than other sides, especially up front. They’ve got some good players in their forward pack and they control the game very, very well.
“We had a couple of good games against them last year and hopefully it will be more of the same.
“We’ve got to match them, if not beat them, physically and tempo-wise we have to keep the game moving, make them run around and see what their legs are like with 20 minutes to go.”
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