Ludlam: Coughing up the ball too easily is costing Saints

Captain Lewis Ludlam believes Northampton Saints left themselves with too much to do in the second half of their 27-14 defeat at Bath on Saturday.

The men in Black, Green and Gold found themselves 14-0 down at half-time at The Rec despite dominating possession and territory – not being able to capitalise on the openings they created.

It had been a similar story in their previous away game (a late 40-36 win at Wasps) and when Tom Collins pulled a try back around the hour mark, hopes of a repeat comeback were raised amongst the travelling Northampton supporters.

However, Bath shut the door on those hopes as they picked up their first win of the season in the Gallagher Premiership, leaving Ludlam to reflect on a frustrating afternoon in the West Country.

“It’s a similar performance to the last two or three weeks,” he said. “The difference is in the last two or three weeks we’ve managed to scrape through at the end, but today we left ourselves with way too much to do.

“The ball is the most important thing and we’re not looking after that well enough, we’re probably overthinking a lot of things, but looking after the ball is key.

“We know when we build phases, we put teams under pressure, but when we cough up the ball after two or three phases, we release the pressure too quickly.”

The result came down to Bath’s staunch defence and hard work at the breakdown, with Saints only able to reach their best level for limited spells of the match.

It is an issue that has afflicted them often this season and this time it cost them after those narrow – if heart-stopping – victories over Wasps and Newcastle Falcons.

Ludlam said: “The most frustrating thing is we know that when we get our game right, we’re dangerous to stop.

“We understood they were going to come for our breakdown, we knew that was going to be their plan and we didn’t quite solve that well enough or quickly enough.”

Coming up for Saints are back-to-back home games against Bristol Bears and Exeter Chiefs, with an improvement on their performance at Bath a necessity.

Ludlam is determined for his side to impose themselves more effectively on Saturday against Bristol, who play a similarly entertaining game.

“It’s a different challenge against Bristol. They’re a structured side, but they throw the ball around and have less of a kicking game,” he said.

“We enjoy playing in games like them, but we’ve got to figure out a way to win when teams aren’t playing similar ways to us, when a team kicks the leather of the ball or puts pressure at the maul or scrum and really invest in their defence.

“We need to be better at adapting, but the good thing is we’ve got another challenge against Bristol, a chance to go again and put a lot of wrongs right.”