Premiership: Phil Dowson hails depleted Saints after narrow win over Tigers

Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson was full of praise for his squad for the way they adjusted without several players en route to their 19-18 triumph in Saturday’s East Midlands derby against Leicester Tigers at Welford Road.

Apart from being without five players who are in England head coach Steve Borthwick’s Six Nations squad, Saints were also missing the injured Courtney Lawes and suspended duo Fraser Dingwall and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto.

Momentous victory

Saints‘ narrow win over Tigers was their first away triumph of the season but despite being minus several first choice players they delivered an excellent performance and came from behind to secure victory.

“The more successful the club are generally, the more players they lose in the international window, plus injuries plus discipline issues from last week,” said Dowson.

“The key is having guys in the squad who have a clear understanding of the game plan and what you want to do and also have a clear understanding of what their role is within that.

“I thought the guys that stepped in this week have been absolutely outstanding to make sure the training level, to make sure our application to the plan and to make sure that performance that goes out on the pitch is outstanding.

“We’ve not been good away from home. In this league, where it’s really competitive, you’re not going to blow sides away, so what you need to do is be really full-on in what you’re doing defensively.

“Then you don’t have to really force anything and, when a bit of space opens up, you have to trust your quality.”

Leicester opened the scoring via a Harry Potter try in the eighth minute, but Northampton struck back with three George Furbank penalties which saw the home side holding a slender 10-9 lead at half-time.

Furbank slotted a fourth penalty before Potter’s second five-pointer restored the hosts’ advantage, but Ollie Sleightholme’s well-taken score after 50 minutes ultimately decided a closely-fought battle.

“We made too many errors and let them into the game off the back of that,” said Leicester head coach Richard Wigglesworth.

“To be consistent, you need to have a consistent team and we haven’t had that. We had some guys back today who will be better for the game time, but had a lot taken away from us this week.

“We’ve now got a block with the same group, so we’ll make sure that we work on that consistency.

Forced the game

“Maybe (the players were trying to force it late on), it happens when you’re behind in a full-blooded game.

“We flew out of the blocks and we didn’t quite get the rewards on the back, so it made the game close and they took their opportunities.

“The lads have got a week off, so we’ll try to get a few battered bodies feeling a bit better. We’ll pick them up a week on Monday.”

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