A concerned Mark McCall has challenged Saracens to find answers to their patchy form.
Saracens suffered their third Premiership reverse of the season with an 18-12 defeat by Northampton at StoneX Stadium.
The Men In Black were kept scoreless until the 59th minute, and not even tries from Tom Parton and Alex Lewington were enough to turn the tide.
Northampton gained revenge for their Premiership semi-final defeat in north London from last season with an inspired, mature performance.
Defending champions Saracens are still scratching around for consistency however, leaving rugby director McCall lamenting their staccato start to this campaign.
“We got away with it last week when we beat Bristol here, but we didn’t get away with it this time,” said McCall.
“We've got to figure out why, pretty quickly. We had a good few weeks, and some good performances and results but that has slipped off.
“From a performance point of view we were very disappointed with how we played against Bristol last week.
“We managed to get the result but that doesn’t mask the frustrations.
“It’s more about performance than result for us always to be honest, that’s how we tend to judge ourselves.
“We want to be a team that’s really consistent, and now we have to set about that.”
Saracens found themselves 6-0 down at half-time, then 13-0 down quickly after the interval.
A promising rally proved too little too late, leaving McCall prepared to search hard for answers in the coming days.
Saracens will kick off their Champions Cup adventure next weekend against the Bulls in Pretoria.
And McCall knows his side will have to crank up the accuracy and intensity to get back to winning ways.
“We were way off it physically today, on both sides of the ball, especially in the first half,” said McCall.
“That’s something that we’ve now got to get hold of.”
