Boyd says Saints enjoying pressure of 'knockout rugby'

Strictly speaking, the real knock-out stuff comes when Saints play in the last 16 of the European Challenge Cup in two weeks’ time, but they are treading a tightrope in the remainder of their domestic campaign.

Four straight defeats leading into March evaporated their margin for error in chasing a place in the top four, but they have responded to that by winning their past three games.

If anything, their task became a little clearer after Tom Collins’ two tries helped them to victory at Franklin’s Gardens on Saturday, as they are now fifth in the table, four points behind fourth-placed Exeter Chiefs with a game in hand.

Boyd said: “I wasn’t bad at maths at school, but I sat there three or four weeks ago, trying to do all the permutations and stuff, but I’m pretty certain we can’t afford to lose.

“We’ve been treating it as knock-out football for the last three weeks and we’ll see if that’s enough or not at the end.

“We lost three or four games in a row and they were fine margins.

“We’ve managed now, since we’ve been playing knock-out rugby, to sneak the last three, or get points in the last three, so it’s knock-out football and we’re enjoying playing it.”

One frustration from a mostly satisfying afternoon for Boyd is Saints still had work to do in building a lead against Bristol despite dominating the majority of the first half.

Several chances went begging before Collins’ opener in the 25th minute and although two more scores followed before the break, some slack defence allowed the Bears to claim three of their own to leave the score balanced at 24-17 at half-time.

Thankfully for Saints, they tightened up to close the game out with something to spare in the second half, even if they were helped by yellow cards to visiting duo Semi Radradra and Fitz Harding.

Boyd said: “I think we created eight opportunities in the first half and converted three, so we were pretty happy with the three, but we weren’t very happy with the five that we didn’t convert.

“Probably more importantly, we conceded some pretty meek scores the other way – the one that was particularly disappointing was the one just before half-time.

“We’d scored a pretty decent try [through Lewis Ludlam], worked pretty hard for it then gave a penalty and conceded a try.

“It wasn’t all roses at half-time, but we knew if we kept sticking to what the plan was and kept doing it, then we had a pretty good chance of coming out the right side at the end.”

The match did take some toll, with lock Api Ratuniyarawa and full-back George Furbank both coming off after HIAs and David Ribbans having to limp off during the second half.

“Just before the whistle blew, I spoke to both the boys that had taken the head knocks and they were both in good spirits and had no [concussion] symptoms at that stage,” Boyd said.

“They’ll go through a process and we’re a little bit lucky we’ve got a week off next week before we come back for the next round of the Challenge Cup, so we’ve got time.”