DESPITE seeing his team emerge on the winning side, Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson was unhappy with their performance against Bath.

With Bath leaving out many of their big names ahead of their Champions Cup semi-final against Bordeaux-Begles next Sunday, Northampton went into this top-of-the-table clash in the Gallagher Prem as strong favourites.

However, Bath looked the better side for much of the second half at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens against the league leaders who were grateful for Fin Smith’s last-gasp penalty in a 41-38 win.

Dowson said: “We weren’t getting through anything we wanted to execute.

“We stopped playing a little bit, got into lots of box kick battles, which definitely suits Bath, and I thought their back three were excellent, in terms of dealing with those and getting Bath on the front foot.

“Defensively, we weren’t at it, particularly that part of our game was again poor, so (defence coach) Lee Radford is particularly annoyed.

“Those elements feed into how we want to attack and play and I think some of our decision-making was a bit restricted in the second half.

“It got very nervy and credit to Bath because at half-time, that score that was chalked off from Manny (Iyogun) would have given us a bit more breathing space.

“But it was a good score for them to get stuck into and really heap on the pressure, and when it came on, we looked nervy.”

Northampton looked in control at 26-14 ahead at half-time after tries from Smith, Freeman (2) and Ollie Sleightholme were replied to by Louie Hennessey and Arthur Green.

Sleightholme claimed his second and Freeman completed his hat-trick, but tries from Tom Carr-Smith, Tom de Glanville, Archie Griffin and Kepu Tuipulotu levelled for Bath, only for Smith to snatch it with the boot.

Bath head coach Johann van Graan said: “Sport’s an amazing thing — it takes you to many different emotions and we’re gutted to lose like that.

“Equally, again, what an amazing game between two brilliant sides.

“In terms of what we’re about and how we’re playing our game, these 23 players were phenomenal today and I couldn’t be prouder to be their coach.

“I think they maybe showed the outside world to stop using words like a ‘second team.’

“We don’t have a second team, we back our squad and we’ve done that consistently for three years and 10 months and, irrespective of who puts on the jersey, they always perform and they always fight.

“I thought we applied so much pressure and, at 38-38 with two minutes and 90 seconds to play, we lose a line-out and put a lot of pressure on their drop goal, but unfortunately that was not the end of the game.”