After an immense playing career at Franklin’s Gardens, back-row Phil Dowson finally hung up his boots at the end of the 2016 season to join Northampton Saints’ coaching set-up.
Initially arriving in 2009 from Newcastle Falcons, Dowson went on to make 186 appearances for the Club and scored 28 tries in Black, Green and Gold.
He skippered the team to the 2010 Anglo-Welsh Cup title, and also starred in Saints’ fairytale 2011 Heineken Cup run where he scored the opening try of the final.
But after reaching the Premiership Rugby final for the first time in 2013, the real success story came 12 months later as Dowson lifted both the league and European Challenge Cup titles.
His 259 Premiership Rugby appearances is more than any active player, and Dowson also captained both the England Saxons in multiple Churchill Cups and the senior England side against the Barbarians at Twickenham.
Following a two-year stint with Worcester Warriors to round off his playing career, he returned to join the first-team set-up as Franklin’s Gardens as assistant coach at the beginning of the 2017/18 season.
But after impressing that term in his new coaching role, new director of rugby Chris Boyd entrusted Dowson with marshalling Saints’ defence at the beginning of the 2018/19 campaign.
