Premiership: Northampton Saints 33-29 Harlequins: Saints fight back to extend home winning run

Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson told BBC Radio 5 Live:

“I think it was a game of two halves. At half-time everyone was pretty measured, pretty calm – very frustrated I’d say from a playing point of view.

“And we knew the things we needed to rectify, they were fairly obvious, and I was very pleased with the way the players came out and did that.

“The penalty count [in the first half] is simply a symptom of being under pressure, so when you’re defending for long periods of time you’re going to give a lot of penalties away.

“We were under pressure because we couldn’t keep hold of the ball, the breakdown was a mess, we were giving penalties away at set-piece.

“Second half – much better flow, much better breakdown, much better intent to go forward.

“[It was] a fast game, and we love that with Quins and Saints.”

On the injury to Alex Coles: “He had a rib injury that was particularly uncomfortable.

“Hopefully, that won’t be too long but the medics will have a good look at him and see how he gets on.”

Harlequins head coach Danny Wilson said:

“First half we were frustrated at what we were handing back to them.

“We’d score a try and then make a mistake on the kick-off or the exit and give them field position, they’re too good a side to give that kind of opportunity.

“We felt we should have been a bit clearer at half-time and then second half, that 20-minute period we just got blown away. Yellow card, just defence, defence, defence and it dragged and drained the energy out of us.

“Proud of the effort, proud that we scored the try to come out of it with two points.

“But it’s a game I think we’ll look back on and think we could well have got more out of it than what we did.”

On playing Smith at full-back: “He’s class isn’t he? Wherever you play him he’s a fantastic rugby player.

“It was needs must tonight and he did a great job.”