'We didn't get anything right' - Dowson reacts to Saints' big defeat at Bristol

The black, green and gold were mauled 46-12 by Bristol Bears, having gone in 35-0 down at half-time.

Saints lost Edoardo Todaro to a 20-minute red card during the first minute and things unravelled quickly as they shipped five tries in a painful first period.

JJ van der Mescht and Tom Litchfield scored after the break but it was scant consolation as Dowson's men saw their unbeaten start to the Gallagher PREM come to a shuddering halt.

"It's hugely disappointing," Saints boss Dowson said.

"I've got some memories of some very poor performances at this stadium, and it's another one to add to that list.

"We didn't get anything right.

"We didn't start with any sort of endeavour, buzz or aggression – and in a game like this, in a league like this, you're going to get found out.

"We were drastically short of any sort of fight in the first half, which is unusual and it's not like this side at all so as a coaching group we need to dig down into that, make sure we learn those lessons and work out what we want to be moving forward."

Dowson feels Saints should have handled the 20 minutes when they were down to 14 men much better.

He said: "That happens loads of times.

"There have been loads of times in the past where we've been outstanding with 14 men, where we've worked for each other, died for each other on the pitch, but we weren't at it today.

"It's a concern and it's something we need to investigate and make sure we get it right."

He added: "If you give them the ball in space, if you don't chase them down, if you don't put the breakdown under pressure, you don't hit them backwards, any team in this league will run over the top of you, and that's what we got in the first half."

So what did Dowson say at the break?

He explained: "I didn't tear into them, I just said 'what do you want the second half to look like?'. I said 'if you're going to go down, how do you want to go down - do you want to go down fighting or with a whimper?'.

"I thought we showed some fight but not enough."

Dowson refused to use a laundry list of key absences as an excuse.

"I don't subscribe to that particularly because in the future those players might be injured or away or they might leave so we have to work as a squad and we have to perform as a squad," he said.

"It's irrelevant who is and who isn't out. What we expect is people to turn up, to make shots, to be physical, make tackles and we didn't do that in the first half.

"It's not because they're not capable so I look to myself, and Sam (Vesty) and I have spoken about it already in terms of how we set them up to be in that mindset this week and how we make sure we don't do that again."

Saints now head into the Investec Champions Cup for the first time since losing in the final last season as they travel to French side Section Paloise next Sunday.

"We were in gear one today so we need to put out foot down and decide what we want to do," Dowson said.

"I actually couldn't care less who we play next week because if we play like we did in the first half here, we're going to get that (a bad result).

"However, if we play a bit more like we did in the second half then we'll be in amongst it.

"We've got to make sure we care about what we're doing."