ALL of the players were gutted after the defeat to Northampton Saints at Sixways on Saturday as we felt we had let the fans down in the final 20 minutes after they had given us so much support throughout the game.

We need to be confident that we can turn these near-misses into victories and finally give our fans something to shout about.

It was always going to be a big challenge against Northampton as they are clearly one of the best sides in Europe.

You have to be on top of your game when you play the likes of Northampton and Leicester as, if you are not, there is always the fear you could be embarrassed.

The pleasing thing for us was that for 50 minutes we were outstanding and Saints didn’t have their usual go-forward in any area of the game, apart from maybe in the scrums.

Defensively we were outstanding and our game was the best it has been all season, so the way we fell away in the last 20 minutes was so disappointing and that is an on-going work-on for us.

There is no doubt we struggle in the second-half of games and why that happens is the $1million question.

Maybe it is down to not having the strength in depth that other sides have — which we saw with Saints bringing the likes of Courtney Lawes off the bench — or maybe it is down to fitness or not getting the impact we need from our replacements.

Nick Johnston started his role at Warriors yesterday and he will be reviewing all of these things to try to find an answer.

I worked with Nick back in 2002 when we were both at Swansea in the last year before regional rugby.

He was the fitness coach down there and I know exactly what a shrewd operator he is. You only have to look at how powerful Northampton are and a lot of that is down to Nick As players, we are all working exceptionally hard and I really hope people can see that we are improving.

We take on Biarritz at Sixways in the Amlin Challenge Cup on Thursday night, but we are not in a position like other clubs where we can have the luxury of resting players for these games.

We don’t have massive depth to our squad and we need to keep some continuity in terms of getting the right performances.

I don’t know what team Dean Ryan will pick yet, but I for one am desperate to be involved.