Northampton Saints head coach heaped praise on George Hendy after his two second half tries sealed a 24-14 win over Munster in the Investec Champions Cup last 16.
Hendy, a substitute for the outstanding centre Burger Odendaal, scored with his first touch of the ball following a classic Saints attack from just outside the 22, but his real moment of magic came 12 minutes later when he recovered a bouncing ball from behind him, accelerated past Jack Crowley and sprinted clear of Simon Zebo to put Saints ten points clear with seven minutes remaining.
Hendy’s heroics add to an enviable selection dilemma for Dowson ahead of their home quarterfinal against the Vodacom Bulls next week. In Hendy, Ollie Sleightholme, Tommy Freeman, James Ramm, and George Furbank if fit, they have an embarrassment of riches in the back three department, which Dowson believes is a big contributor to his side’s success this season.
“There’s loads of lads who are desperate to play”, said Dowson. One of the things we’ve been blessed with this season is the competition within the squad. Throughout that long run of games we had a lot of different players representing and contributing.
“We left a lot of players out this week who were unlucky not to get involved, so as we go through and pick up bits and pieces, we need to rest and rotate, we’ve got to have trust as a coaching group to give those guys some opportunities.
“It gets heavy, but we’d rather be in that situation than not”.
A number of players, particularly in the backline, have epitomised Saints’ strength in depth this year. Sleightholme, Ramm, and Tom James have established themselves as top class Premiership players whilst Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith, Furbank and Fraser Dingwall have all taken their games to the next level.
However, this famous win against Munster – Northampton’s first Champions Cup knockout victory since beating Perpignan 23-7 in a semifinal way back in 2011 – will be remembered for Hendy’s breakthrough, even if it may not eclipse the coming-of-age performance exhibited by Smith in Saints’ pool stage victory over the same side at Thomond Park in January.
“He [Hendy] scored in academy corner!” said Dowson. “The journey he went on last season at Bedford, week in week out playing Championship rugby. Coming in this year he moved out of academy house and moved in with Angus Scott-Young, that’s a maturity element.
He had a good preseason, started the season really well, then he had a really frustrating injury. The more George plays, the better he gets, and he had a huge contribution today. He’s a freak of an athlete.”
“The players spend a lot of time in terms of how to beat people, how to create space how to use your skills whether it’s footwork, fend, power. Hendy’s been blessed with quite a few of those different things, he’s athletic enough to beat somebody.”
The win in the context of Saints’ season is also vital. They slipped to a shock 52-21 loss to Bristol in their first game back after the Six Nations, and needed to prove that their consequent 41-30 win over Saracens was them writing off the Bristol game as a one off.
“[We needed to bounce back] big time”, said Dowson. “We didn’t talk about it too much, Courtney [Lawes] said a few bits in a meeting, Fin [Smith] said a few bits, we weren’t quite in the right space against Bristol and I thought the reaction last week and our ability to be consistent in that space this week against two unbelievable sides is testament to the maturity of the playing group”.
With momentum firmly regathered from their ten match winning streak between November and March, they can now look ahead to their home quarterfinal against the Bulls, who dismantled Lyon 59-19 on Saturday, with confidence.
“We watched them yesterday as a coaching group”, said Dowson. “The power and athleticism throughout that group, then you’ve got the experience of Willie le Roux, just a very talented group.
“We’re obviously going to spend a lot more time looking at them but I saw the pack weights in the game and there’s some big men knocking about so we’ve got to make sure we’re ready for that and not get too distracted with what they bring to the table.
“We understand what part of our game needs to be at its best to get a result”.
Written by Tom Jeffreys
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