Saints Director of Rugby Phil Dowson praised his side’s character after they bounced back from last week’s defeat to Leicester Tigers with a 28-14 victory over Gloucester at DPD Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens.
Having fallen behind early against a Gloucester side that arrived in Northampton in impressive form, Saints responded with four unanswered tries – from Tom Pearson, Curtis Langdon, Rory Hutchinson and George Hendy – to claim a valuable Gallagher PREM victory before attention turns to the PREM Rugby Cup.
“We were still a bit frustrated from last week, but what we did was battle hard, and I thought we were excellent in that second quarter of the match,” said Saints’ Director of Rugby.
“We controlled possession and territory pretty well in the second half and managed to convert some of those opportunities.”
Saints entered the contest looking to respond after their defeat at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, and Dowson was delighted with the way his side rose to the challenge against the Cherry and Whites, who entered the weekend as the form side in the league.
“We were disappointed with last week, so there was no better game to find out about ourselves with Gloucester flying,” Dowson continued.
“To finish the PREM block on that win is really rewarding, and we can send those internationals away with a good vibe and focus on a slightly different element of our group in the PREM Cup.”
Despite having a significant number of Saints international players absent for much of the week’s preparation due to early Nations Championship alignment camps, Northampton produced one of their most well-rounded performances of the season – keeping league-leaders Gloucester scoreless in the second half.
Dowson said: “There were nine of our starting group and 13 of the 23 that went to international camps, so we didn’t see them until Thursday.
“It speaks volumes about the connection and how ingrained our game plan is in our squad to pull together.
“We only had a couple of days of training with everyone, and that’s potentially one of the reasons we started a bit slowly and sloppily. But our energy and intent around that Thursday session, how tight we were as a group on Friday, says a lot about the group that we have.”