Tom Lockett explained that Northampton Saints can’t shy away from disappointing 96-42 defeat against Saracens in the opening round of the PREM Rugby Cup.
A stunning effort from 17-year-old Will Catley put the men in Black, Green and Gold ahead before the break, but it was one-way traffic for a period after half-time, as Saracens crossed some seven times before Saints could respond, and Lockett, who captained the young matchday squad, shared his disappointment at full-time.
“We can’t shy away from the fact we’ve conceded a lot of points,” the Saints lock said. “After such a good first half, it’s even more disappointing. All we’ve spoken about in the changing room was about going out there and backing it up.
“I think we lost a lot of collisions, we didn’t get a lot of our kick chase right and that sort of snowballed.
“We got trapped in that snowball, and it was almost free-flowing at times for them, and that’s not what we want to be.”
Saints handed out six debuts in Saturday’s clash at the StoneX and all of the visitors’ try-scorers were under the age of 25, with Catley’s effort breaking Henry Pollock’s previously held record as the Club’s youngest-ever try-scorer in the professional era by 31 days.
“We want to be a difficult team to play against,” Lockett continued. “I think we were like that in the first half, which is why it’s so disappointing, because it’s all there, we’ve just got to put it on the pitch for longer.
“Something we’ll definitely speak about is how much good stuff we did in that first half against a very experienced Sarries team.
“We went in ahead, and there was so much good stuff to unpick, but obviously, we can’t let it unravel like that again.”
With an average age of just 21.9, up against a Saracens squad that boasted over 800 appearances between them, Lockett, at just 23 years old, was one of the more experienced campaigners in Saturday’s squad.
He continued: “I’m only 23, but it’s part and parcel of this competition that it’s so good for providing opportunities for young lads,
“Although it’s a tough result to take, they’ll learn so much from that. We’ve got quite used to winning over the past couple of years, and you’ve got to be able to lose as well.
“We don’t want to lose often, but when we do lose, we want to pick out why, and we want to work on it. We will do that because the nature of having a young group is that everyone’s eager to learn, and everyone wants to improve every day.
“Off the back of a result that’s going to hurt, we’re going to be even more eager to learn and improve.”