From brilliant to absent – Phil Dowson reflects on ‘typical’ Northampton display

Northampton boss Phil Dowson felt his side’s 38-29 victory over 14-man Saracens was indicative of their inconsistent performances in recent years, saying they were both “brilliant at times and absent at times”.

Saints maintained their push for a play-off spot with a bonus-point win but, despite playing some breathtaking rugby, they made hard work of quelling a severely under-strength Saracens who battled ferociously after losing centre Duncan Taylor to a 10th-minute red card.

Northampton’s win over the league leaders sees them rise to fourth place in the Premiership table with just an away fixture with Newcastle to come but they can be overtaken by the chasing pack, who have more than one game to play.

Director of rugby Dowson said: “We created a lot in the opening 20 minutes but didn’t convert all that pressure and ended up forcing it too much.

“The third quarter was a pretty good performance but in the last 20 minutes we dropped off considerably.

“The game was a typical Saints’ effort of recent seasons, inconsistent at times, brilliant at times and absent at times.

“We have tried to address the problem in training but sometimes you can’t have the brilliance without having some of the calamities thrown in but it’s just a question of managing it a bit better.

“I believe we are making strides in the right direction but we are not quite there yet.

“Next Friday at Newcastle will be difficult as they’ve turned over some big sides up there but if we were able to get into the play-offs then it’s open season in the knock-out stages and I hope we would be able to ask some questions.”

Alex Moon, Lewis Ludlam, Tommy Freeman, Rory Hutchinson, Fraser Dingwall and Smith scored tries for the home side with Smith adding four conversions.

Rotimi Segun scored two of Saracens’ four tries, with Theo Dan and Manu Vunipola grabbing the others and Vunipola adding three conversions and a penalty.

Saracens performed heroics to stay in the contest as they also lost Segun to a yellow card and had to play with 13 for a 10-minute period, but had Vunipola succeeded with a touchline conversion with the last kick of the match, they would have gone home with two bonus points.

Director of rugby Mark McCall said: “We were in the fortunate position of being able to rest a number of players so the outcome of the game wasn’t of major importance today.

“We showed a considerable amount of resilience and fight against a fully-loaded opposition before a big crowd.

“The sending off made the game even tougher for the youngsters but it also added to the experience for them.

“We made a mistake in not going seven and seven when we lost a player as we gave them too much space with only six defenders behind the scrum and it certainly improved when we made the change.

“Northampton are a very dangerous team if they click and when they get it right are certainly hard to handle.”