The fantastic match served up by Bath Rugby and Northampton Saints on Friday 10th April is great for the sport, according to the Midlanders’ director of rugby Phil Dowson.
The tremendous game between Bath Rugby and Northampton Saints here at The Rec on Friday 10th April is good for the sport, according to the Midlanders’ director of rugby Phil Dowson | Photo © Richard Briggs
The Blue, Black & White went behind by 28-7 and then 35-14, only to hit back for a 43-41 victory at The Rec in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final encounter.
And at Northampton’s post-match press conference, Dowson said: “I’d rather it was really one-sided and boring. Genuinely.
“It’s a great game. It’s good for the game. It’s got ebbs and flows and momentum shifts and everything really
“It’s obviously a good game of rugby but it’s frustrating to be on the wrong side of it, particularly being 28-7 up and starting so well but not being able to capitalise on it.
“After half-time, we take a three, they got on top immediately after that.
“The last couple of weeks, probably our restart hasn’t been good enough.
“There are loads of different little things that allowed them in and they lead to momentum shifts.
“Archie McParland takes a quick tap and goes, and is the 9 played, blah, blah, blah? It ends up us hustling back and it being a five-yard scrum.
“There’s big shifts in the game, that’s going to happen, but fundamentally we didn’t execute enough, often enough, to win the game.”
Bath received a big boost when the Saints’ England back row Henry Pollock was sin-binned in the 73rd minute for an offence at the breakdown.
Dowson said: “I haven’t looked at it again but the referee’s given it, he’s not going to change it now and my opinion is irrelevant.
“I’ll feed back, I always do, to [European Professional Club Rugby head of match officials] Tony Spreadbury and [match referee] Andrew Brace and talk about the things that we thought were good, bad or indifferent, and there’s loads in our game that’s good, bad or indifferent that I need to focus on first before we start dissecting decisions.”
