Try hero Sleightholme savours Saints' 'fired-up' second-half showing at Sixways

Sleightholme scored four times as his side secured a huge 62-14 Gallagher Premiership win.

Saints were just 15-7 up at half-time, with Sleightholme having notched an eye-catching try just before the break.

But they raced away in the second period and piled on the pain after Chris Ashton was sent off for an illegal clear-out.

"If you look at the first half, it was a completely different story," Sleightholme said.

"If you look at the stats, they were almost in Worcester's favour, they were making more metres.

"We came in at half-time and we knew they had been coming at us hard in attack and coming in hard at the breakdown, so we just needed to win that frontline first before we earned the right to go out the back.

"In defence, we were a little bit soft through the middle, not sticking to what we know and when they got into our 22 we were pretty soft on them again.

"We spoke at half-time, got ourselves a bit more fired up and went out and proved that point."

Sleightholme became the first Saints player to score four tries in a match since 2019, when he grabbed a quartet of scores in a Challenge Cup clash with Timisoara Saracens.

He said: "I scored four tries against Timisoara. They went down to 14 and ended up defending with a prop on the wing so it was a bit different to this game, I guess!

"This time it was a case of trying not to play too much because you can get caught in the trap of knowing there's space and trying to force it to that space all the time.

"You've still got to earn the right to go through the team and play out the back.

"One of our main things is having the confidence to go out on the field and play the rugby we know we can play."