'It was one-way traffic' - Dowson reflects on Saints' painful loss to Tigers

That was the view of Saints boss Phil Dowson after he saw his side suffer a sobering 33-0 defeat at home to Leicester Tigers on Friday night.

On a night when the black, green and gold hoped a win could kickstart their stuttering title defence, things fell extremely flat in front of a sell-out crowd.

Saints shipped three tries in eight minutes early on and never recovered as they were nilled for the first time since a 32-0 defeat at Leicester in September 2005.

It was also the first time Saints have ever been nilled at the Gardens in the Premiership.

And Dowson said: "As a coaching group we always sit beforehand and ask what we expect from the evening, and we didn't see that coming, which is one of the frightening things.

"We felt we were in a good space this week, had a good energy in training but in the first half we were blown away.

"We coughed the ball up a lot, a lot of errors, a lot of turnovers, no field position, we looked like we were almost trying too hard, a bit scattergun, very stressed.

"We kept giving the ball away in the wrong areas of the pitch - there were three or four intercepts - and we couldn't get the ball on the floor when it was loose, couldn't get it in the air.

"Anything that was competitive, we came out on the wrong side."

Saints missed a chance to score inside the opening couple of minutes, and things went downhill from there.

"We actually started really well," Dowson said. "Our first play, we hit the wrong line and we actually should have scored.

"That would have settled us and got us back into a routine, but from then on we were very fragmented and it was one-way traffic.

"We did (look a bit rattled).

"It's something we're going to have to consider, reflect on and work out why we did look a bit shellshocked."

Saints were playing for the first time since March 1, when they lost at home to Ealing Trailfinders in the quarter-finals of the Premiership Rugby Cup.

"It does have an impact but the whole point of the coaching week is to mitigate that and to get us back connected as quickly as possible, but we didn't do that," Dowson said.

"It's obviously going to be some pretty tough lessons for Sam (Vesty) and I, and the rest of the coaching group to wear and get better at - and we'll do that.

"The only option is to take that on the chin, front it and say that it was unacceptable.

"There were elements of being thrown together this week, that's true, but we knew that from a while ago.

"It's going to be some tough lessons for us and the rest of the coaching team to wear and front it."

Dowson says the mood felt different from when Saints were beaten by Ealing as their levels of energy and intent were higher against Tigers.

"It's a different dressing room to the Ealing dressing room in terms of how we went after it and how we played," he said.

"There was plenty of effort and intent to do the jobs - we just didn't do it very well.

"For that many errors to occur across the board, not just individuals but across the board, we have to look at the bigger picture and we have to take our time reflecting on that.

"We have to make it abundantly clear it's not acceptable but we have to make sure we go after the right thing."

Saints now appear to be out of the play-off race in the Gallagher Premiership with six games still to play.

But Dowson, who takes his team to Sale Sharks next Friday night, said: "We'll continue to pick the absolute strongest group we can do.

"We've got plenty of players in there coming back from injury, from internationals who haven't got minutes under their belt, so we'll be better for that next week.

"We've got Burger (Odendaal), Trev Davison, Curt Langdon, Alex Coles who haven't played much and that was an element of this evening so we'll continue to push that group forward and pick the team that we think gives us the best chance of a good performance."