Northampton Saints boss Phil Dowson claims his team’s 38-29 victory over Saracens was “typical” of the last few seasons.

The win is important for the Saints’ charge for the play-offs and sees them rise into the top four, but they have played one game more than most teams near them on the table. All that is left in Northampton’s regular season is an away clash with Newcastle Falcons.

Right direction

Dowson believes his side are moving in the right direction but is not quite there yet as they struggled at times against a 14-man Saracens.

“We created a lot in the opening 20 minutes but didn’t convert all that pressure and ended up forcing it too much,” Dowson said.

“The third quarter was a pretty good performance but in the last 20 minutes we dropped off considerably.

“The game was a typical Saints’ effort of recent seasons, inconsistent at times, brilliant at times and absent at times.

“We have tried to address the problem in training but sometimes you can’t have the brilliance without having some of the calamities thrown in but it’s just a question of managing it a bit better.

“I believe we are making strides in the right direction but we are not quite there yet.

“Next Friday at Newcastle will be difficult as they’ve turned over some big sides up there but if we were able to get into the play-offs then it’s open season in the knock-out stages and I hope we would be able to ask some questions.”

Rested stars

League leaders Saracens rested a number of stars for the clash as they sit comfortably at the top of the table. Still, director of rugby Mark McCall was pleased with his side’s resilience and underlined that Saints can be dangerous when they click.

McCall said: “We were in the fortunate position of being able to rest a number of players so the outcome of the game wasn’t of major importance today.

“We showed a considerable amount of resilience and fight against a fully-loaded opposition before a big crowd.

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“The sending off made the game even tougher for the youngsters but it also added to the experience for them.

“We made a mistake in not going seven and seven when we lost a player as we gave them too much space with only six defenders behind the scrum and it certainly improved when we made the change.

“Northampton are a very dangerous team if they click and when they get it right are certainly hard to handle.”