Northampton Saints will ‘take their scars and learn from them’ after their first defeat of the 2025/26 season in the PREM Cup to Newcastle Red Bulls.
That was the view of Director of Rugby Phil Dowson, who saw his side fall to a 14-31 loss despite taking a nine-point lead into the interval at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens courtesy of tries from the returning Ollie Sleightholme, and a first for the club from replacement Amena Caqusau.
Starting fly-half Anthony Belleau landed two brilliant conversions from out wide, but was replaced before half-time after picking up a knock and Newcastle swarmed in the second period, scoring 26 unanswered points as Saints’ unbeaten start came to an end in their eighth of the season.
“Newcastle brought a really strong team, and that’s what we wanted,” said Dowson. “We wanted to challenge, and a couple of things didn’t go our way from an injury point of view, losing our ten and having to make sure we manage minutes for Ollie and Furbs [George Furbank] coming back from injury.
“So that obviously didn’t help matters, but I think in the second half, we just lost our way a little bit. The intercept [for Newcastle’s first try of the second half] was a shame, because I felt we had all the pressure in that second half up until that point. Then we just tried a bit too hard and we looked a little bit scatty. But that’s good experience for this very young group.
Having not played a minute so far this term, internationals Furbank and Sleightholme were back in the starting line-up and were replaced before half-time and at the break, respectively, to manage their returns to action.
Elsewhere, Dowson used the opportunity to get minutes into youngsters like Sonny Tonga’uiha, Henry Lumley, James Pater, Jonny Weimann and Oliver Scola – whose collective average age is just over 19.
“We can’t have a development ethos without some bumps in the road, and there was lots of guys there stepping up,” added Dowson. “I thought James Bennett in the second row was outstanding. He’s been playing university rugby at Loughborough all year. That’s a huge step up for him against a really experienced Newcastle side with lots of PREM caps, and at a level and an intensity that he’s not been at before. I thought he stood up, and he tried his heart out.
“There’s lots of guys there who will now have a better understanding of what it's like to play PREM rugby and understand what it’s like at this level, and we’ll take those scars and we’ll make sure we learn from them.”
This Cup block draws to its conclusion in Round 5 with a trip to Mattioli Woods Welford Road to take on Leicester Tigers on Friday 21 November (kick-off: 7.30pm) – before the competition restarts again in the spring.
“It’s exactly what this tournament's is about,” said Dowson of the trip to Leicester. “It’s about going to tough places, learning about what it takes to play at this level, to create consistency for this group – so show them what a performance means and what a preparation week looks like, and what a diary looks like.
“It’ll be interesting for these lads as well. So we’re excited about that [Tigers], we know what this tournament is all about and we’ll hit the next challenge as hard as we possibly can.”