Saints’ Derby Day resilience delights Dowson

Director of Rugby Phil Dowson is hoping Northampton Saints can continue to show the sort of composure they displayed in the closing stages of their East Midlands Derby victory at Leicester Tigers on Saturday.

It would have been easy for a team to get flustered after the newly-introduced ‘shot clock’ forced George Furbank to kick a penalty while Leicester fans were applauding off Freddie Burns during his replacement, in what was his final appearance for the hosts.

Furbank sent his kick wide amid the din, thus missing the chance to extend the lead to four points, but Saints did not allow this to faze them as they showed discipline and diligence in their defence to earn their first Derby triumph in five games.

Getting the 19-18 win also lifted them up to fourth in the Gallagher Premiership standings and put their fate back in their own hands in what is a congested race for this season’s play-offs.

Dowson said: “We’ve talked about resilience and it was a case of ‘you’ve missed that one, can the next thing be an opportunity to put pressure on Leicester?’

“They’re going to kick out from the 22, can we be really strong in terms of how we then force the pressure back onto them, whether that’s through a carry, kick or defensive pressure?

“I thought our ‘next job’ attitude was really good.

“We just about creeped by on Saturday so we’re delighted with lots of parts of our game that we’ve been working on. They came to the fore, and that’s all you can ask for.

“It was a derby and there’s lots of different aspects to it – with the supporters, the media and things like that – so we’re delighted with it.”

Dowson was able to give an update on the head injury that forced hooker Mike Haywood off the field just nine minutes into the contest at Welford Road.

While Robbie Smith performed superbly off the bench and the experienced Tom Cruse was signed last week until the end of the season, with Sam Matavesi currently sidelined with a hamstring injury, Dowson would not want to lose another experienced player in that position.

Thankfully though, the news on Haywood was positive, with Dowson saying: “He’s good, he’s OK. He knew straight away because he’s had a head knock earlier this season.

“He clashed heads going into a tackle and straight away he wasn’t right.

“He went through the HIA process and he wasn’t right, so Robbie played a considerable amount of minutes and played very well.”

The Gallagher Premiership will be taking a breather next weekend and Saints will now have to wait until Saturday 18 February to back up their derby day win, when second-placed Sale Sharks visit cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens.

They do, however, have a Premiership Rugby Cup semi-final at London Irish to look forward to eight days prior to that.

It has been four years since Saints last won that competition and Dowson has full belief the players he will select at the Gtech Community Stadium can take them to the final.

He said: “We now have a week where there’s no game, we’ll continue to train and then we’ve got the semi-final in the PRC.

“That will be an opportunity for different guys, which is always really positive because of the energy they bring.

“It will also be fascinating to see how they deal with it, and then we go back into the Prem for a fairly decent run of games.”