Boyd 'embarrassed' by Saints' display at Tigers as boss issues apologies

Boyd said Saints were 'rightfully embarrassed' after being beaten 28-24 by their local rivals, Leicester Tigers.

A penalty try allied with efforts from Paul Hill and Henry Taylor only proved enough for a losing bonus point as Saints were made to pay for a hugely ill-disciplined display.

Tigers also suffered in that sense as they lost three players to the sin bin, but Saints struggled to put the pressure on during those periods.

And as it was, the black, green and gold suffered their 10th defeat in their past 12 matches as their troubles continue.

"That's probably the worst performance I think we've had in the time that I've been here," said Boyd, who arrived from the Hurricanes in the summer of 2018.

"It was embarrassing and the boys are rightfully embarrassed.

"They've got to take it on the chin.

"There was not one part of that performance that we could hang our hat on and be proud about.

"At least in the previous couple of games with this side we'd muscled up, not quite got it right and made a few mistakes.

"But today it was just an embarrassing performance.

"We're apologetic to our supporters and to the club.

"It's way, way short of what we expect from this group.

"We've got to find a way to breathe a bit of confidence, zing and enthusiasm back into the boys because if we lack that at Sandy Park (when Saints face Exeter in the Champions Cup quarter-finals) next Sunday it's going to be a pasting."

Tigers only scored once, through Ben Youngs, but the boot of Zack Henry continually did the damage as Saints struggled to keep their composure in defence and attack.

And Boyd added: "I think they scored one intercept try and a whole bunch of kicks, but that doesn't take away from the fact they scored more points than we did.

"We play a game based on width, skill and decision making but at the moment the decision making, skill execution and the vision has dried up.

"It's a really interesting question around whether we need to go back to playing a more conservative game with less fluency and just hunker down and be a little bit more disciplined and organised.

"But that's not what we were successful doing in the time I've been here so whether you go away from that or not, we'll have to regroup the troops on Tuesday and see what that picture looks like for Exeter."