Saints 'got trapped in a snowball' during sizeable loss at Saracens

But the lock, who skippered an extremely young black, green and gold side in the 96-42 PREM Rugby Cup defeat at StoneX Stadium, believes his team will be stronger for the experience.

Saints delivered an impressive first-half showing against a Saracens side that contained the likes of Nick Isiekwe, Alfie Barbeary and Max Malins.

But they unravelled during the second period, shipping an eye-watering 77 points after the break.

And Lockett said: "We can't shy away from the fact we've conceded a lot of points and after such a good (first) half, it's even more disappointing.

"All we've spoken about in the changing room was about going out there and backing it up.

"We don't want to be that team that goes out there and only plays for 40 minutes so it's massively disappointing, but we've always got to go again."

When asked what went wrong in the second half, Lockett said: "I think we lost a lot of collisions, we didn't get a lot of our kick chase right and that sort of snowballed. We got trapped in that snowball and it was almost free-flowing at times for them, and that's not what we want to be.

"We want to be a difficult team to play against, and I think we were that in the first half, which is why it's so disappointing because it's all there, we've just got to put it on the pitch for longer.

"Something we'll definitely speak about is how much good stuff we did in that first half against a very experienced Sarries team.

"We went in ahead and there was so much good stuff to unpick, but obviously we can't let it unravel like that again."

Lockett was making his 66th Saints appearance at the age of just 23.

And he was one of the more senior figures in a team that contained several teenagers.

"I'm only 23 but it's part and parcel of this competition that it's so good for providing opportunities for young lads," Lockett said.

"Although it's a tough result to take, they'll learn so much from that.

"We've got quite used to winning over the past couple of years and you've got to be able to lose as well.

"We don't want to lose often but when we do lose we want to pick out why and we want to work on it.

"We will do that because the nature of having a young group is that everyone's eager to learn, everyone wants to improve every day.

"Off the back of a result that's going to hurt, we're going to be even more eager to learn and improve."