As Chris Boyd’s Saints team continues its development quest this encounter probably serves best as a grim warning.
Saints in recent years have been to some dark places in terms of form and while we are not yet in the sunlit uplands we can console ourselves that at least we are not Bath.
They can’t buy a win at the moment and despite a squad full of talent were low on confidence and ideas at Franklin’s Gardens.
Saints can only play the team that turns up – even if Bath were more like the ghosts of their best selves. Despite six brilliant tries from Saints, Bath looked so beaten from the start that for Saints somehow the attention falls more on the 19 points leaked.
Perhaps that was the plan from Bath, to disorientate Saints with so little pushing back that when they did make the effort we weren’t ready.
There is no gloating in this because Saints fans know what it’s like to have all the pieces but no picture. It’s chilling really.
