Saints’ cohesion as a squad is paying off, says Dowson

Phil Dowson was thrilled with his Northampton Saints side’s ruthlessness and cohesion as they secured their first knock-out tie in the Investec Champions Cup since 2020 with a 61-14 victory over Aviron Bayonnais. 

A hat-trick from Tom Pearson, a brace from Alex Waller and further tries from Courtney Lawes, Curtis Langdon, Tom James and player-of-the-match Tommy Freeman saw Saints secure their third-largest points haul in a Champions Cup match to date. 

The win continued Saints’ unbeaten run in this season’s competition and sealed their place in the knock-out stages of the Champions Cup for the first time in four seasons, with results elsewhere over the weekend meaning the Round of 16 clash will take place on Northampton soil in April. 

In arguably their most rounded performance of the season so far, Saints stormed to a 42-0 lead at half-time but despite the impressive first-half performance, Dowson knows his side will pull apart the second 40 minutes – in which Bayonne scored twice through Tom Spring and Aurélien Florian Callandret – to see what they could have done better. 

“We didn’t expect [the first half] to be quite like that, but then again, we didn’t expect the first 20 minutes against Exeter last week either,” said Dowson. 

“That performance has been building for a while now, there’s been a very definite sense of cohesion coming for months and months, and potentially years, with most of this group. Sometimes everything just falls into place and goes your way and certainly that happened in the first half. 

“The second half was more frustrating because it broke up a bit and they came back into it the game. Clearly, they were always going to with the quality of the players they have. It’s a little bit frustrating to finish the game like that. 

“That frustration is testament to the lads because that’s what they were talking about, not just us a coaching group. It’s a case of us wanting to keep pushing and be better, every week is another challenge coming and we have to make sure we’re ready for it. We can only do that by really pushing ourselves.”

22-year-old Freeman took home his second player-of-the-match medal in this season’s Investec Champions Cup thanks to another stellar performance on Friday night, having first won the award in Saints’ tournament opener against Glasgow Warriors.

And Dowson was quick to commend the young winger, while also offering praise for the likes of fly-half Fin Smith, centre Rory Hutchinson and prop Trevor Davison amongst others. 

“Tommy’s excellent all around the game,” said Dowson. “His ability to bring the ball to the line, his high ball work and some of his defensive efforts were very good. 

“I thought both nine and ten, in Fin and Mitch [Alex Mitchell], were brilliant at putting us into the right areas of the field. With Fin, I think you forget his age; some of the physical elements of his game were very good today, in defence and from a breakdown point of view he’s brave. I thought him and Mitch together were excellent in terms of putting us in those right places.”

Dowson continued: “Rory Hutchinson is one of the best, maybe in the world, at creating space and moving the ball. His ability to put somebody into space is second to none and you see that every week with Hutch.

“What’s really improved for him this year is his physicality, he was sitting people down on Friday, he takes the ball to the line and carries it. The defensive stuff that he’s been doing with Radders [Lee Radford] has been excellent. There’s lots of parts of the game that Rory’s been working on which are shining out. 

“There’s loads of players on that list. I’d mention a few of the forwards up front too, Trevor Davison probably doesn’t get all of the plaudits today but going up against a big French scrum who’ve been causing problems all across the Top 14. Someone like Trev and his work in the loose as well, his defensive work has been outstanding. Curtis Langdon as well, Alex Waller getting two tries. 

“Across the board when you get a performance like that, it’s very hard to single out any individuals.”

Dowson will be hoping to see several of those names, along with others from amongst his Northampton side, named amongst England’s squad for the upcoming Guinness Six Nations campaign – with head coach Steve Borthwick set to name his squad on Wednesday.

Speaking of his players on the international stage, Dowson added: “We talk a lot as a group about the players wanting to be ambitious and wanting to have that international dream alive. I just hope that they get the opportunity.

“I spend all my time watching Saints, worrying about Saints and trying to make sure we give those lads the right opportunities. I don’t necessarily watch Leicester or Bath every week, I watch a bit of them before we play those teams, but I don’t get to see their players as consistently. 

“I’m always going to be biased to our lads. But I think there’s plenty of them that are in a rich vein of form, playing together and doing well. Steve’s got lots and lots of decisions to make and I think that’s a great place for England to be.”

Back in Northampton, Saints’ nine-try bonus-point win over Bayonne meant the Club were the first to secure their place in the competition’s Round of 16 and kept them firmly at the top of Pool 3, with further results over the weekend meaning Northampton will host the knock-out tie at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens.

But with fellow Gallagher Premiership side Exeter Chiefs just a point behind Saints in the Pool standings, Dowson and his side know that every point on offer in the final Pool stage clash at Munster Rugby will count as they look to put themselves in the best possible position come the knock-out rounds. 

Dowson said: “It was only a few weeks back that in Round 1 we were talking about how we hadn’t won a match in Europe for a while, something like ten games without a win. So to give ourselves that opportunity to secure knock-out rugby with one game to go is really pleasing. 

“But there’s loads still to play for. With that, we talk about the stories we want to create in Europe and I think Munster is one of the best places to go and play in that competition. We talk about wanting to be challenged and that is something that were looking forward to there. 

“We’ve had a little look at the game last year already, we had a poor first half and a good second half, albeit against 14 men. But I think this year is going to be a really good check on our mindset and where we want to be. 

“We want to do the best thing for the Club and try to give ourselves every opportunity to win at Munster, which doesn’t happen very often for opposing teams. 

“The coaches are already all over looking ahead to that match. We’ll spend the weekend recovering and making sure we get the energy right for next week. Then we’ll work out what parts of our game are really relevant for taking on Munster.”