Despite last night’s Round-of-16 clash becoming a somewhat topsy turvy encounter, Northampton Saints’ Director of Rugby Phil Dowson was pleased to see his team end up on the right side of the result and make it to a third consecutive Investec Champions Cup quarter-final.
The men in Black, Green and Gold trailed their French visitors, Castres Olympique, for the whole of the first half at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens, before Saints pulled in front after the break and eventually held onto a 49-41 victory despite a late Castres resurgence.
And while the match proved to be a 90-point thriller for the neutral rugby supporter, Dowson knows that Northampton’s refusal to back down will stand them in good stead as they look to progress through the competition’s knock-out stages.
“We knew Castres were going to come out and play,” Dowson said. “We knew the individuals they have in that group and how good they are at getting the ball going forward.
“The space they create, the offloading and the athletes they have in the backline are impressive, but the maturity of the squad now is such that we can start poorly from a scoreline point of view and then recover nicely and get ourselves back in the game.
Castres shot out to a 12-point lead within 15 minutes at cinch Stadium, capitalising on loose ball to score an early brace. From there Saints came back, scoring first through a penalty try before Danilo Fischetti muscled his way over the whitewash.
Northampton took the lead for the first time in the match in its 43rd minute, thanks to George Furbank’s slicing line which eventually put Josh Kemeny over. Further tries from Tommy Freeman, Furbank, Archie McParland and Fraser Dingwall put the game out of Castres’ reach, but it was club captain Furbank’s effort that proved to be Saints’ catalyst.
The fullback’s cutting run through Castres’ defence provided on of the scores of the evening but it also came as an opportune moment for Saints, after their French guests had just had a score of their own chalked off by the TMO.
And it was how his side capitalised on the change of momentum at that point that Dowson found pleasing.
He said: “The try George scored was a huge turning point because they’d just had a try chalked off, and we came straight back down and scored. I was very pleased with how we recovered from that.
“I don’t think we ever thought we were on top of them, we never got away in the scoreline, and we didn’t manage to deal with the restarts, so as soon as we scored, we let them back in to get field position and pressure.”
“There are loads of small things that Furbs does back-to-back,” Dowson continued on 14-cap England international Furbank – who was named Investec Player of the Match on Friday.
“He had a frustrating time in the England camp, where he didn’t get much opportunity, but he was training hard.
“He’s come back in and impressed with his high-ball work, and his counterattack. We talk all the time about how decisive he is, and I thought tonight he was excellent.
“The other thing that people maybe don’t see is during the week, how he leads, how he gets the group together, how he connects the group. He’s been excellent for us.”