Saints boss Boyd left to rue individual errors after Bristol defeat
Chris Boyd was left to lament individual errors after Saints suffered a frustrating defeat to Bristol Bears on Sunday afternoon.
The black, green and gold were 14-0 up after 50 minutes but Rory Hutchinson was sin-binned for a high tackle and Saints started to fall apart.
They conceded two tries between the 60th and 63rd minute, going 17-14 down before Ian Madigan added a penalty to make it 20-14 with the final kick of the game.
It was a second successive defeat for Saints, who shipped two tries in the final seven minutes to lose 20-16 to London Irish late last month.
And Boyd said: "At 14-0 I thought things were looking pretty good, but we dropped off a couple of tackles that cost us points and they got their nose in front. We were unable to peg it back in the end.
"We controlled the game for long periods of time, but they scored more points than us so it's very disappointing to surrender that lead here at the Gardens and lose our second game in a row.
"There's work to do."
Saints remain second in the Gallagher Premiership standings ahead of next Sunday's trip to table-topping Exeter Chiefs.
And Boyd added: "We'll have to look at this game again, but it's probably individual errors.
"Maybe we started running out of puff and the guys we brought on didn't bring the energy we needed.
"At 14-0 at home with 30 minutes to go, we should have been able to close that game out."