Northampton Saints may have slipped to their first defeat of this season’s Premiership Rugby Cup competition on Saturday, but Director of Rugby Phil Dowson insisted several elements of his side’s performance were ‘exceptional’ at Leicester Tigers.
The men in Black, Green and Gold recovered from a slow start (which resulted in a 21-0 deficit) to trail 21-19 just after the interval, with Tom James crossing twice and Will Glister also scoring a try.
James added a third for his hat-trick before Fyn Brown also notched his second score in Black, Green and Gold – but Tigers kept Saints at arm’s length throughout the second half with Solomone Kata and Adam Radwan putting some gloss on the scoreline in the final ten minutes.
Northampton had fielded a side packed with youth at Mattioli Woods Welford Road against a more experienced Leicester line-up, and while Dowson was not satisfied with coming away with only a losing bonus point to show for their efforts, he did commend the resilience Saints showed in repeatedly clawing their way back into the contest.
“Obviously we’re disappointed; you come to Welford Road and you always want to perform well and win,” he said. “For large parts of the game, we did perform well, but we gave them a big head start at 21-0 which made it tricky.
“We keep talking about the fight, the heart, and the character the young players are showing – and that might become boring for some supporters to hear – but the fact is that we can coach that group with that effort.”
Phil Dowson, Director of Rugby
“Largely the same group of players went to Stade Francais and Harlequins, and we’ve made big improvements from those games in areas like our breakdown and defensive movement. There were some elements against Leicester – our discipline for example – which again need work.
“But a lot of the guys I thought were outstanding. Billy Pasco for instance, on his first real go against an opposition of that calibre, against the likes of Dan Kelly and Solomone Kata who both have international caps.
“There’s always things we can be better at, and we’ll work hard at those. We could have played the last ten minutes differently, and it was a shame they got two late scores.
“But I was very proud of the effort in that match, it was by no means a blow out, and the fight and ambition to carry out our gameplan under a lot of pressure from a strong Leicester squad was exceptional.”
The result meant that Saints dropped to second in Pool 2 of this year’s Premiership Rugby Cup, with Coventry’s big win over Nottingham seeing them leapfrog Northampton in the standings.
The men in Black, Green and Gold will host Coventry this weekend at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens, and with a place in the knock-out stages of the competition on the line, Dowson knows Saints have it all to play for.
He added: “With the side Leicester picked it was always going to be a test; a test of our set piece, a test of our defence, and a test of our attack. Games like that are where we find out a lot about each other.
“We can work with what we saw out there. We’ll pore over the video, learn what we can, and we’ll benefit from that experience.”
Phil Dowson, Director of Rugby
“We’ll have to address the slow start; we had some guys making their debuts, others coming back from injuries, all those sorts of things have an impact when you don’t get it right from the beginning of the game.
“This tournament is all about younger players making a step-up, and them working out that it’s not that different – it’s the game they’ve always played – but knowing that they need to be a little bit sharper, brighter and faster.
“There’s lots to play for in the Cup for us, it’s game on. Coventry will be a proper match, there’s lots of history there and the match away from home was a huge test, then we’ll have Nottingham away and see where we’re at after that. We want to give ourselves a chance to get into a quarter-final.”
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