Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd hails his side’s ‘really important’ victory over Wasps

Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd hailed a ‘really important’ victory for his side as they ended a four-match losing streak by edging past Wasps 27-22 at Franklin’s Gardens.

Tries from Alex Mitchell, James Grayson, Alex Waller and Courtnall Skosan secured a bonus-point win for Saints to keep alive their outside hopes of a top-four finish.

Wasps had raced into a 10-0 lead early on but were pegged back by the hosts who were good value for their victory, although Boyd did not think their performance was much different to the ones in the matches they lost. 

Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd hailed his side’s ‘really important’ win over Wasps

He said: ‘It was really important to win but I don’t think we were any better or worse than in the past month.

‘We just won a couple of critical moments and finally got five points. We managed to build ourselves a lead and hold out.’

Grayson added points with the boot to his first-half try but missed two late penalties as Northampton were made to sweat before celebrating victory.

Boyd admits he would have liked to see Grayson convert one of those kicks but was pleased with the fly-half’s overall performance.

He added: ‘I don’t know how critical it will be in the end, but it would have been nice for Jimmy [Grayson] to have got one of those penalties at the end and deny them a bonus point, but he had a much better game today and I was very pleased for him.’

Boyd was left frustrated after Wasps rallied with late tries from Paolo Odogwu and Will Porter, although the director of rugby was understanding after making a number of changes.

He said: ‘It’s very hard when guys come in and haven’t played for a while. We made four changes in the last five minutes and there were some mistakes that let them have that last try.’

The result was a disappointment for Wasps who are now 12 points off of fourth place, but head coach Lee Blackett was pleased with his side’s first-half performance.

He said: ‘I was really happy with the first 20 minutes, I thought we controlled it, we were unlucky to have a disallowed try as well.

‘We then get turned over on the breakdown on the counter-attack, before you know it, we were gifting them field position.

‘I thought we scrambled pretty well to go in just 12-10 down. I like to think we could’ve deserved more out of the first 20 minutes, we should’ve been up even more, but we didn’t.’

Saints controlled much of the second half, and Blackett was left frustrated with the his side after the interval.

He added: ‘Then the second half I thought was a little bit scrappy. We lost too much in and around the breakdown, knock-ons in and around there, it cost us in the end.

‘A couple of errors knocked the stuffing out of us.’