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It's now 13 defeats in a row for Northampton, but Chris Boyd hasn't lost all hope yet

(Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Northampton boss Chris Boyd isn’t too concerned his team felt to a 13th consecutive defeat on Saturday, this time losing to Leinster in the Champions Cup on a 35-19 scoreline in Dublin. Not since an August 22 away win at London Irish in the Premiership have Northampton tasted victory under Boyd.

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Their 2019/20 run after that success at Irish was seven league losses and another in Europe and that form has carried over into 2020/21, Saints losing their opening three games prop up their Premiership while their hopes of a good run in Europe are over after back-to-back defeats in recent weekends.

Boyd, though, doesn’t feel their latest defeat will have a negative impact when they try to pick up the pieces with their Boxing Day Premiership game at home to Worcester.

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“I don’t believe that the two [Europe and the league] are linked,” he said. “If we came and got pasted by 60-0 and played really poorly then it might have had an impact but we have got probably half a dozen guys to come back into the team. Worcester coming to us is a very important match from a league point of view.”

Training 14-0 early on in Dublin, Northampton seemed set to get heavily beaten. However, the rallied with tries from Fraser Dingwall, Tom James and Nick Isiekwe and Leinster were left relying on last-quarter penalty kicks to see out the win.

“We made some defensive lapses but generally the intent was good. It probably didn’t show on the TV, and you certainly wouldn’t have picked it up on the radio, but it was quite windy. It actually was quite difficult to play.

“We haven’t lacked intent all year. We tried really hard, The attitude of the players wasn’t missing. We have just been inaccurate for periods of time. Our challenge is to be more consistent. We know we have the capability but we just drop off consistently and it cost us.”

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Nickers 32 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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