It was not a performance for the ages that kept Northampton top of the Gallagher PREM pile, as visitors Newcastle Red Bulls kept Saints fighting until the very end of the 28-27 clash.
The men in Black, Green and Gold proved to be their own worst enemies at times, with their compounding errors broken up by sparks of brilliance that saw Archie McParland, Ollie Sleightholme, Curtis Langdon and Tom Litchfield cross the whitewash.
And despite Newcastle’s success in capitalising on those mistakes from their hosts, Northampton got the job done and secured a win that centre Rory Hutchinson knows could prove crucial come the end of the season.
“It was really tough. If we could make every error that was on the plate, we did that today,” said the 30-year-old.
“We’re disappointed with the performance, and we know we want to be better than that.
“We started really well, in those first two minutes when we got ourselves seven points up. But that’s the hard thing about sport, you can’t always put your finger on why mentally we weren’t in the right space.
“It was a perfect day, the weather, the pitch – this is what we absolutely love as a team. But then our breakdown wasn’t good enough, we had too many handling errors that let them back into the game. That’s what made it really close in the end.”
Saints had started the clash exactly how they wanted, when Litchfield sliced past his opposite man on the left and found George Furbank inside him to send McParland over the whitewash after just 90 seconds.
Newcastle had then pounced to score a quick brace before Saints retook the lead through Sleightholme; and while Northampton did not relinquish that lead again, Red Bulls’ persistence meant Saints had to fight until the final whistle to keep their noses in front and claim the one-point win.
Hutchinson said: “You never think any team is going to be a cake walk and credit to Newcastle for their performance, but we pride ourselves to be better than that.
“You’ve got to be able to understand situations in front of you quicker. It took us until half-time to work out where Newcastle were tripping us up. Their main game plan was to come down here and mess up our breakdown and we didn’t react quickly enough to that.
“We’re being hard on ourselves but that’s because this team, myself included, hold ourselves to higher standards than that. We won and that’s the most important thing.”
Saints must dust themselves off quickly, with the prospect of a huge clash firmly on the horizon – when they will break new ground and take to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the first time next Saturday (28 March, kick-off: 6pm).
“We’ll take this result and use this game to get the cobwebs out and look forward to next week,” the Scotland international said looking ahead that upcoming clash with Saracens.
“I’ve never been to Tottenham before so I’m really looking forward to it. I think it’s a really good spectacle for the game.
“Saracens will be hungry after their loss to Bath, and we’ll want to put some of our mistakes against Newcastle right so I think it’ll be a great match-up.”