'It always sits with the DOR' - Dowson takes responsibility for Saints' defensive struggles

That has been the case for Ian Vass at Saints in recent weeks as the club's defence has not hit the heights expected.

Saints have shipped more points than any other side in the Gallagher Premiership, and some alarming stats flashed up on BT Sport prior to their game at Gloucester earlier this month.

In terms of Premiership averages this season, the black, green and gold were the worst for points conceded, tries conceded, carries conceded, metres conceded and tackles missed.

They went on to produce another porous defensive display in that clash at Kingsholm, suffering a 34-19 defeat in which Gloucester grabbed a bonus point.

Since then, Saints have suffered a humbling defeat at La Rochelle in their Heineken Champions Cup opener, going 46-0 down inside just 48 minutes at Stade Marcel Deflandre last Saturday.

They did see out the rest of the game without conceding another point, but the damage was very much done.

So just what is director of rugby Phil Dowson making of his side's defensive struggles and their failure to keep their discipline under pressure?

And how can Saints put their current issues right before they host Munster in another extremely difficult European encounter on Sunday?

"From my point of view, the first half last Saturday was a lot of examples of us trying too hard, trying to chase things, trying to solve at every phase of play, either jumping out of a defensive line or going in too hard at a midfield breakdown to give them opportunities and giving penalties away," Dowson said at Tuesday afternoon's media session.

"The discipline is an element of trusting our system, of understanding our system and then executing that passage of play rather than chasing after too many things and trying too hard to solve things when we are under pressure."

So is it harsh for critics to place the blame solely at the door of defence coach Vass?

"First of all, it always sits with the DOR, whoever the head coach is, whoever the boss is, so some of that responsibility is with me," Dowson said.

"Ian Vass is very experienced, a very technical, highly-qualified, good coach.

"We need to work out how we can get those messages across to the playing group, but I think we do have those messages.

"We just get into a situation where we get stressed and we then go and try to do something that doesn't fit with the system by jumping across the lanes to make big shots and going hard at the breakdown in the middle of the field, which gives them penalties.

"We've spent a lot of time solving our maul problems in terms of we were leaking too many tries at maul time and we solved that, then they (La Rochelle) scored on the fringes of that.

"The next level of that is to put it so we solve all those different bits. It's always one thing more.

"Of course the coaches have to take responsibility and be accountable. I have to be accountable as well, but we just have to make sure the players understand what we're trying to get them to do together, that they believe in it, that they've got their own feedback on it and that we start to improve."

Dowson had a few days to reflect further on the La Rochelle defeat, not that the time that has elapsed since the defeat has done much to quell his frustration.

"I'm always frustrated when we don't quite get it right," he said.

"In the first half we allowed them far too many opportunities in our 22 through ill discipline, through giving the ball up, through not relieving pressure when we had the chance to.

"What happens against good sides is that you get punished - and in the first half that happened, and early in the second half that happened again.

"After that, we came back into the game, the scrum was very solid and we exerted some of our own pressure.

"It was probably too little, too late, but there were definitely elements that were a positive from our point of view but you can't give teams a 32-point head-start."

One big boost for Saints was the return of Courtney Lawes, who came on during the second half and helped his side win the period he was on the field 12-0.

So how key is it for Saints to have one of their most experienced leaders back in action?

"He gives us a huge amount of confidence because you look over at the sideline and one of the best players in the world is coming on," Dowson said.

"I think as much as it pains people to hear it, this is still a young group, not many have played in France.

"We played at Lyon a few years ago when George Furbank had a stormer so there's not tonnes of experience in that space and we will have learned loads of lessons in terms of how we prepare for a game from my point of view, how I speak to the team and put the team together in selection.

"There's loads of things to learn from it, it's just a shame it's such a painful way to learn them."

Lawes was part of a strong set of replacements last Saturday, with Dowson explaining why he started with the likes of Sam Matavesi and Alex Mitchell on the bench.

"We wanted to have lots of quality off the bench to really push them in the latter part of the game, and we did that, but by that point it was too late," Dowson said.

"We felt that we wanted to go toe to toe, be really abrasive in that space and we were probably overly so in terms of trying to chop them at every single phase.

"La Rochelle didn't make huge inroads apart from off turnover and off penalties, which is the frustrating element.

"We know a lot of what we did was okay, but we just didn't do it in a disciplined way."