Boyd: Saints deserved success at Saracens

Saints boss Chris Boyd saluted his side for holding their nerve at Saracens.
Saints won at Allianz Park for the first time since March 2016Saints won at Allianz Park for the first time since March 2016
Saints won at Allianz Park for the first time since March 2016

And he feels they fully deserved their sensational 27-25 Gallagher Premiership opening-day win at Allianz Park.

James Grayson's last-gasp penalty secured the points for Saints, who had gone in at half-time 21-16 up thanks to tries from David Ribbans, Rory Hutchinson and Henry Taylor.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

They were eventually made to work very hard for their win, but they earned it thanks to Grayson's penalty.

And Boyd said: "It was significant for us in that there were parts of the game that were good for us today that weren't always good last year. We defended really well in patches.

"After half-time when we conceded nine points in penalties we had a young leadership group who steadied the ship, got some territory from them and won a shot at goal to win the game. It was pleasing.

"When we ended up with a scrum five metres from our own corner, I thought we'd have to do really well to extract ourselves from the situation and get some field position but credit to the boys, they held their nerve.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"There's always two ways of looking at a game, but from a completely unbiased point of view, I think we did enough to deserve to win."

Saints had not won at Allianz Park since March 2016 and had lost their past six league games against Saracens.

But Grayson was not fazed as he landed the kick that finally put a full stop on those unwanted records.

"I've got a lot of faith in Jimmy in the crunch times when he needs to kick a goal for us to win," Boyd said.

"He generally did a good job at that last year and I was pleased with his organisation and game management here. To kick that at the end was pretty good."