Phil Dowson: Northampton Saints boss excited by Premiership's return
- Published
Phil Dowson played for Newcastle Falcons and Worcester Warriors as well as Northampton Saints
"At one point I was talking about David Brent in my office, leaning on my desk and I just thought please, please cut this out."
Last season, despite the distractions of a crew filming scenes for an Amazon documentary series about rugby union, Phil Dowson managed to steer Northampton Saints into the Premiership play-offs for the second successive year.
And even though he doesn't have a Gareth or a Tim in his squad, he is relishing the prospect of life on the road as they prepare to begin a new Premiership campaign away to Sale Sharks on Sunday.
"There's a group there, you'll probably see it from the documentary, Alex Sanderson has obviously got them bought into that journey, so it's a big challenge, but we're really excited about the opportunity to go up and test ourselves and see where we're at," Dowson told BBC Radio Northampton's Saints show.
A former Saints player, he took over the director of rugby role at Franklin's Gardens when Chris Boyd left at the end of the 2021-22 season.
And his task is to continue building a side that can go one step further than the play-off semi-finals. They lost to eventual champions Leicester Tigers and Saracens in the last two seasons, but now want to reclaim the title they won under Jim Mallinder in 2014.
Focus on defensive improvement
They go into the new season after two thrilling scraps with Bath and Bristol in the Premiership Rugby Cup, beating the former by a single point and losing to the latter by an equally tight 39-38 margin.
"We have to be better in lots of different areas, particularly in our defence, and I don't think we can make too many bones about that," Dowson added.
"We know what we're after and now we've got to show what we're capable of - and I think we've shown it in patches in the PRC, in terms of our collision, some of our maul defence down at Bristol was outstanding and the second half against Bath as well."
Northampton's defence is now the primary concern of coach Lee Radford, who switched from rugby league to replace Ian Vass.
And changes made to the squad have mainly been in the pack with Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Oisin Heffernan, Alfie Petch and Karl Wilkins departing - and Elliot Millar-Mills and former London Irish trio, Tom Pearson, Chunya Munga and Tarek Haffar, arriving.
Saints signing Tom Pearson scored 10 tries in two seasons with London Irish
Of those, only flanker Pearson will start against Sale after scoring two tries in last weekend's 82-12 demolition of Championship club Doncaster Knights.
So who can challenge Saracens and Sale, last season's top two?
"I haven't really looked at who is likely to be top of the tree, I've looked at what our run (of games) looks like, I've looked at the traditional strengths of the teams we're coming up against - the league will sort itself out and there'll be some that surprise you, some that don't," Dowson said.
"We played Bath two weeks ago and you see their squad and go 'wow, that's a very talented squad', the momentum they had at the back end of last season was very strong, are Bath going to have that momentum from last year - I don't know.
"Harlequins, Gloucester have started brilliantly with five from five (in the PRC) - and in a 10-team league, the talent is even more concentrated, so it's even tougher."
He continued: "It's the people we're coaching, it's the group, it's the excitement of turning up on a match day and seeing people in Saints shirts that still gets me buzzing.
"I love the stories, I love the people and I'm really excited by the squad."
'Explain the jargon'
Some of those 'stories' may well be part of the documentary Mud, Sweat and Tears: Premiership Rugby, which is now available to stream.
And Dowson believes it should be part of a wider initiative to broaden the game's appeal, despite the inconvenience of cameras in meetings and the dressing room.
"It is edited to make it a bit more interesting because a lot of the meetings are about whether a prop should put his arm here or there, they're quite mundane," he said.
"People are interested in storylines and the friction and the narrative and the characters. You've got to create some of that, you've just got to do it with some subtlety.
"The first cut that came through I actually didn't get to see but that was drastically changed so I don't know what was in that. I watched the second cut on my laptop with my wife and she enjoyed it."
Saints stars Courtney Lawes, Lewis Ludlam and Alex Mitchell are still away with England at the World Cup in France and Dowson thinks the organisers may have "potentially missed an opportunity to grow the game".
"Rugby is complex, there's so much going on, there are so many rules, it would be worthwhile explaining some of the jargon," he added.
"Get an ex-player to do it in a funny way. I suggested to James Haskell that he could be a superhero called Jargonbuster. He would pop up in the corner and when people say 'not rolling away, what does that mean?' then he describes it to you.
"What's happened to me a lot is you say 'I work in rugby', they say 'I love a bit of rugby, but I've got no idea what is going on'. Why don't we educate people so they do know what's going on and think it's a cool game?"