Young Leads 49ers Over the Patriots : Interconference: He directs two late scoring drives in 24-12 comeback victory.

The San Francisco 49ers were plagued by shoddy special teams play, a missed field goal and several penalties Sunday against the New England Patriots.

The 49ers even trailed, 12-10, at the start of the fourth quarter, before they came back for a 24-12 victory.

“I’m not surprised by it,” said 49er Coach George Seifert, whose team improved its record to 5-1. “You come into a situation against a club that’s hungry to win a game and you have to be at your best, and we weren’t. That was a bagful of errors to overcome, and we did.”

Steve Young directed the two late scoring drives. He ended one with a two-yard pass to Ricky Watters, who also scored the final touchdown on a one-yard run.

“If we have to come back in the fourth quarter the next 10 weeks, so be it,” said Young, who completed 19 of 27 passes for 234 yards and ran nine times for 69 yards. “That was a great thing that we did at the end.”

Watters rushed 19 times for 104 yards as the 49ers, with the NFL’s No. 2 offense, outgained the Patriots (0-5), 411 yards to 227.

“Everybody expected us to come out here and blow this team out,” San Francisco’s Jesse Sapolu said. “If you’re going to be a great team you have to overcome that.

“This type of game is really scary. It’s easy to get psyched for the Philadelphia Eagles.”

The Patriots took a 12-10 lead on Hugh Millen’s 11-yard touchdown pass to Ben Coates with 4:56 left in the third quarter.

Charlie Baumann missed the extra point, but the Patriots still had their first lead of the season.

“We made a better account of ourselves” than in other games, Millen said, “but nobody walks into the door at 10 o’clock (Sunday) morning and says, ‘Boy, I hope we make a good account of ourselves.’ At this point, we’re still winless.”