Saints ended 2016 with a win at Franklin’s Gardens over Sale Sharks last night but it was not to be Nic Groom’s night as the scrum-half was denied two tries by the TMO.
Groom said that while the tries would have been nice, he and the team were pleased with their performance and happy to get the win they needed to begin building momentum as the season moves into 2017.
“Sometimes it’s just not your night I guess,” Groom told SaintsTV last night.
“I thought I was in for the second one but it just wasn’t to be. It just happens like that sometimes.
“But I’ll take a victory over tries any day. It’s a massive relief for us to be honest; the last month has been tough as a group so to bounce back in front of our home crowd and get a win was really special.
“I do think we were tested. Sale have an all out attack mind-set that really tested us out wide but I thought we made some great decisions in defence.
“In our attack I think we can still sharpen up more, I think we can still make better decisions and improve on our detail and keep the ball in hand, we can’t just defend the whole game. But lots of positive signs going forward.
“I think the game is evolving a lot and we need to keep up with that.
“The whole transition from attack into defence is something that we’re really focussing on because you can’t just go into games preparing to tackle the whole game.
“We need to become good with ball in hand and build our strengths around that and become a more holistic, well-rounded team and I think if we can get that right then we can expect some big things from the next few games.
“Going into the Christmas break with a win is great. We’ve got a couple of days off now but there won’t be too much rest for us but everyone’s going home to visit their families on the back of a win at home and you can’t ask for more than that.”
