Dowson: Fight to the end against Bath shows Saints’ character

Phil Dowson commended the character of his Northampton Saints side, as the men in Black, Green and Gold held out to defeat Gallagher Premiership leaders Bath Rugby 35-34 at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens. 

Saints flew to a 19-0 lead within 15 minutes thanks to tries from Josh Kemeny, Fraser Dingwall and James Ramm. But top-of-the-table Bath pulled themselves back into the game, setting up a grandstand finish where Fin Smith’s overtime penalty sealed a dramatic one-point win for Northampton. 

It was that fight to the final whistle that impressed Dowson and his coaching group the most in the Round 10 clash. 

“It was relief more than anything else,” said Dowson on Smith’s match-winning kick. “I felt very confident in where he was and how he’d been kicking, even though he’d missed a couple from longer range. 

“We’d done loads of good stuff in the game but the second half had got a bit scrappy and we hadn’t managed to get our game on the pitch as much. 

“What we struggled to do was exit cleanly and move the game down the pitch, which meant that there were a fair few times we were scrambling, but I also thought that defensive effort was brilliant to keep them out.

“It was 77 minutes when Finn Russell put that penalty over. But we can talk about character, we put in that short kick-off, get the ball back and put in a tonne of phases together with high skill and a breakdown focus, and that speaks volumes about that group.”

While Sunday’s win did not move Saints up the Gallagher Premiership standings, it saw Dowson’s men close the gap on the teams above them in the table – leaving Northampton eight league points off the play-off places and ten behind second-placed Bristol Bears. 

Saints now take a break from league action as the Investec Champions Cup gets back underway this weekend – with Northampton making the trip to face Stade Francais – but Dowson knows his side cannot rest on their laurels if their hopes to be in the mix for play-offs come the end of the season are to be realised. 

Dowson added: “We’ve obviously got to take loads from this result. There’s plenty that we can do better; in attack, in defence, at the set piece. But from a character point of view, you can’t coach grit and effort, so I was delighted with that side.

“We’re not thinking ‘let’s go on a run’, we’re thinking ‘let’s beat Stade’, which away in Europe is a tough ask. So, the only thing that will make it a change in momentum and a change in our consistency of form, is our behaviour.”

Smith’s match-winning penalty was part of a 15-point haul for the 22-year-old as he claimed the man-of-the-match medal against Bath. 

And Dowson was full of praise for the England fly-half, commending Smith’s defensive capabilities as well as his calm head. 

“I thought Fin was outstanding,” said Dowson. “That performance is coupled with how he’s led the week coming into it, and how he’s pushed that group onwards – particularly from an attack point of view. 

“But defensively he was brilliant, that shot on Miles Reid was standout, Lee Radford was purring next to me, but every week Fin makes a tonne of tackles and his completion rate is really high. 

“I think you see characters like his all the time, any 10 worth his salt wants those moments. When those players are eight years old, that’s what they’re pretending, that the kick in the garden is to win the game. Fin’s been kicking that kick for donkey’s years. 

“But he’s worked incredibly hard with people like Jake Sharp in terms of how he strikes the ball in the game too. He put one on the floor that we scored off, he put one over the top that we scored off. You can see in that all-round game, you get an insight into his character and his mindset.”