Dowson: ‘Loads to work with’ despite opening-day defeat in Bath

Director of Rugby Phil Dowson insisted several elements of Northampton Saints’ performance at Bath gave him cause for optimism, despite a 38-16 opening day defeat.

The men in Black, Green and Gold trailed after the opening 40 minutes, with Josh Kemeny’s try and a Fin Smith penalty their only response to three Bath scores from Joe Cokanasiga, Ted Hill and Ben Spencer.

Saints however responded well after the break, dominating possession and territory until the hour mark, with Smith adding two further penalties and James Ramm seeing an effort disallowed by the TMO.

But a knock-on inside their own 22 by Northampton was ruthlessly punished by Bath as Ollie Lawrence grabbed a try against the run of play. From there, Saints had too much to do, and as they chased the game, Jaco Coetzee added another score late on.

“I don’t think we got the kicking strategy quite right in the first half, so we weren’t putting them under any heat in their territory,” said Dowson.

“At 21-16 around the hour mark, I felt really confident of going on and winning the game. However clearly from there it got away from us, discipline was an issue, and looking after the ball.

“Winning away from home in the Premiership is tough, you’ve got to get everything right. We didn’t get a few things right today and we got punished, and then chased the game a little too much in the last 20 minutes and made some uncharacteristic, unforced errors which allowed them in.

“Overall, loads of effort, but we weren’t quite where we needed to be from a tactical point of view.”

New recruit Kemeny marked his full Northampton debut with a try, finishing off a scintillating first-half move after skipper George Furbank scythed through the Bath defence.

The Australian flanker – who became Saint #2090 on the night – popped up on the left wing and held off the last-ditch tackle of Cokanasiga to dive over the whitewash, and was industrious all over the park to catch the eye of Dowson, despite a late yellow card for a maul side entry.

Dowson said: “Along with a lot of our players, I thought Josh was outstanding.

“It’s disappointing for him, on a big moment in his career making his debut for Saints, not to be able to look back on that as a particularly good memory as we came down to Bath and didn’t get what we wanted.

“That’s a shame for him, but he had a great game, and scored a great try.”

Next up for Saints is a homecoming to cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens, as the men in Black, Green and Gold welcome Exeter Chiefs next Saturday afternoon.

A bumper crowd is expected with only limited tickets now remaining for the clash, and Dowson is optimistic his side will produce a response against the Devon outfit, with plenty of green shoots evident in the performance at the Rec.

“The most important thing for us going back home is to play well and perform, everything else will take care of itself,” he added.

“We’re frustrated that we didn’t put our best foot forward against Bath, but as coaches, there was loads in there for us to work with.

“We said we wanted to measure ourselves on our physicality and our energy, and I thought in those areas we were outstanding – we can do a lot with that.

“We looked after their set-piece well, the pack were excellent and we actually had the ascendency for long periods in the scrum, with maul defence really good in the first half – although that fell down towards the end of the game.

“We were happy with our work in defensive collisions too. We can coach around the discipline issues where we need to be better, and around some of the other things that came unstuck, and we’ll be better next week.”