Latham blames poor ball control

Having played under the new rules back in Australia in the Super 14 with Queensland Reds before making the switch to the Premiership with Worcester, Latham needed little time to adapt to the new ELVs.

But the former Wallaby full-back believes the players must take responsibility as their 100 per cent record at Franklin’s Gardens came to an end.

“New laws or not, if you don’t control the ball or look after it in the rucks it doesn’t matter what laws you are playing under you are not going to be successful,” he said.

“There is not much difference with the new laws. The referees are very quick at the breakdown and that is something as teams you have to adjust to. You have to become more clinical and accurate in that area.

“Back in Australia we were constantly evolving because of the new laws, but it does take a while to get used to.”

Despite the defeat at Northampton, Latham doesn’t feel that there is too much for his new team to correct before next weekend's trip to Prem-iership champions London Wasps.

“It was a pretty disappointing day from a team point of view and it is something that we need to go back and look at. But it’s not too much other than the old six inches between the ears,” the Aussie added.

“It is only game one, things are promising out there and we have been doing some fantastic things in training, but that is training and we have to be able to put it on the park.

“The most disappointing thing is that it didn’t come off for us.

“We have been training really well and for it then not to come out on the park is disappointing.”

While the game wasn’t the prettiest to watch for a Premiership curtain-raiser live on television, the former Queens-land Red felt that was down to his new side.

“It was a scrappy game but I think that was because we didn’t control the ball as well as we could have, we need to fix that. With our ability we could have made a good game of it,” he added.