Michael Paterson says that Saints have got to front up in every game from here on in the Aviva Premiership.
The second row was visibly shocked and downcast after Friday night’s home loss to Wasps, a game in which Saints shipped three tries inside the opening half-hour to give the visitors to Franklin’s Gardens a grip on the contest they never looked like giving up.
Saints did score in the second half through Sam Dickinson, but by then it was too late, and the team will no doubt be ruing a gilt-edged chance at the end of the first 40, and regular handling errors which both ended promising attacks after the break and allowed Wasps to kick downfield to force the hosts to have to play from deep repeatedly.
U can't win every week but last night was a disaster. We're ashamed of our performance. Well done to wasps. We really hav sum work to do now
— Tom Wood (@tomwood678) January 30, 2016
With the middle of the Aviva Premiership table becoming increasingly congested, and a trip to in-form Harlequins on the horizon next Saturday, Paterson says that the hard work has to start immediately.
“We knew coming back into the sheds that it wasn’t us,” he told SaintsTV. “We didn’t start well and that we needed to pick our intensity up and in the first 10, 15 minutes after half-time we increased our tempo. We could have got back into the game but a quality Wasps side didn’t let us.
“We’ve got to concentrate on ourselves, on our basics and our set piece, and on Friday we weren’t on song.
“We’re bouncing from the European Cup to the Aviva Premiership and have got to be on song. We’ve got to work hard from the beginning of the week. No matter who we’re playing we’ve got to front up because there are no easy games.”
