After a difficult two weeks of on the road loses, Saints returned to the Gardens yesterday and claimed their fifth straight home win over Worcester Warriors.
Jim Mallinder said that while there was much to improve on, Saints’ win was an important one that will give them a boost in morale and momentum as they travel to Sale Sharks next Friday night.
“I think Mikey’s first try was a really important moment,” Mallinder commented.
“It gave us a cushion we could really push away with. It was disappointing to concede that early try but I thought we fought our way back nicely there.”
With Worcester fightin Saints for the full 80 minutes, even scoring a consolation try at the death, Mallinder said that tactically Worcester proved a great threat that Saints struggled to cope with in the third quarter of the game.
“They play a certain way do Worcester, they’re a nitty gritty side and they’re difficult to break down.
“We didn’t want to play too much from the back too much, they put a lot of players in with an organised chase so you’ve got to kick at the right time, you’ve got to run at the right time.
“It was disappointing to not do a little bit more there but we’ve got a win now.”
Moving into round seventeen of the Aviva Premiership, Saints travel to Sale Sharks next Friday night in what will be another tough test before returning home to host local rivals Leicester Tigers.
Mallinder said that these are two games that Saints are really targeting and that the expectations of everyone at the club mean they want to perform the best they can over the coming weeks.
“Going up to Sale is important to us, then with Leicester at home, they’re two games that we need to be winning.
“We are a big club and we’ve got very high expectations here. Everyone’s got high expectations, the supporters, the players and of course the board so we need to strive to be as good as we possibly can be.”
