Director of Rugby Phil Dowson admitted his Northampton Saints side were far from perfect despite a 66-33 victory at Nottingham on Friday evening.
The men in Black, Green and Gold were made to work hard to secure their progression to the knock-out stages of the Premiership Rugby Cup at Lady Bay, with other results in the competition from across the weekend ultimately confirming a home tie against Ealing Trailfinders in the quarter-finals.
Nottingham led twice early on, but Northampton pegged back their hosts with five first-half tries of their own – Iakopo Mapu, George Hendy and Tom James all crossed the whitewash and centre Charlie Savala grabbed a brace.
Savala completed his hat-trick in the second half while Tom Litchfield, Rafe Witheat, Tom Seabrook and Archie Benson all scored, but Nottingham notched five tries of their own meaning Saints could not afford to slip into cruise control.
Highlights: Nottingham vs Saints
“They made us work very hard,” said Dowson. “There were some very frustrating elements to it, but it was a spirited Nottingham side and we managed to get on top at the end of the first half and start of the second.
“We couldn’t quite get into our rhythm at any point. The penalty count in the second half was something like 11-5, and that just gives them opportunity to get into our half and we didn’t keep them out as much as we’d like to.
“The second half was a bit frustrating, but we worked really hard in the first half to grind them down and we just took our foot off the gas a little bit.
“Nottingham were spirited, they got stuck in, they caused us a lot of problems, so fair play. They got a lot of turnovers and slowed a lot of ball down.
“Obviously the conditions made it tricky to move the ball fast, which is what we wanted to do. The scrum dominance in the first half was great, but we couldn’t really turn the tide to get on top of their defence, so credit to them.”
Phil Dowson, Director of Rugby
With no fixture next weekend, Saints will use the next few days for rest and recovery before the Premiership Rugby Cup’s knock-out rounds begin – and Dowson is eager to see his side progress into the business end of the tournament.
“Now we’ll make a plan for the next block of games before we get back into the Premiership,” Dowson added.
“We want to go as far as we can in this tournament and that will be dependent on lots of different things, but it’s great to have a home quarter-final to look forward to.”
