'Silly discipline' and 'easy tries' cost Saints at Bath, admits skipper Furbank
Phil Dowson’s side were beaten 38-16 as Bath made an early statement in the new campaign after losing to Saints in last season’s league final.
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Hide AdBut Saints were well in the game with 62 minutes gone, pulling back from 21-10 down at half-time to just five points behind.
Ollie Lawrence’s score with 17 minutes to go proved vital as Bath then took the game away from Saints.
And Furbank, who succeeded Lewis Ludlam as Saints’ club captain during the summer, said: “We've got to be really at the races to execute our game.
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Hide Ad"I think our physicality and intensity was there in leaps and bounds. You want to set a benchmark there, and I think we did that.
"The execution off the back of that was a little bit disappointing but we'll go away and work on that.
"The physicality is there and we want to base our game off the back of that, which we did well.”
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Hide AdFurbank added: “It was a bit of a scrappy first 20. They probably dominated the kick battle and we struggled to put a bit of pressure on but we felt like we grew into the game after that first 20.
"Definitely in the first 20 of the second half we put loads of pressure on, we just let them out with some bits of silly discipline and we couldn't take our opportunities.
"I don't think the scoreboard quite reflects the game and we'll be pretty disappointed because they scored some easy tries.
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Hide Ad"In away games, we speak about staying in the game and we were in it until we gave away a bit of a sloppy try. They capitalised off the back of it.
"Once you start getting back in the game and you start putting pressure on with the scoreboard, you want to capitalise, but we didn't do that.
"They had momentum a bit more in that last 20 and it felt like they got on top of us, we couldn't get a foothold in the game and it was quite disappointing.
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Hide Ad"Ultimately, there's always going to be momentum swings in the game and when you start feeling momentum going their way, you want to try to grab that back as soon as possible.
"We didn't grab that momentum back as quickly as we'd like but they did that very well.”
Next up for Saints is a first home game of the Premiership season as they take on Exeter Chiefs at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens on Saturday.
And Furbank said: “We're back home on Saturday.
"Hopefully there's a big crowd and we're buzzing to get back there.”
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