Northampton Saints head coach heaped reward on George Hendy after his two second half tries sealed a 24-14 win over Munster within the Investec Champions Cup final 16.
Hendy, an alternative to the excellent centre Burger Odendaal, scored together with his first contact of the ball following a traditional Saints assault from simply outdoors the 22, however his actual second of magic got here 12 minutes later when he recovered a bouncing ball from behind him, accelerated previous Jack Crowley and sprinted away from Simon Zebo to place Saints ten factors clear with seven minutes remaining.
Hendy’s heroics add to an enviable choice dilemma for Dowson forward of their house quarterfinal towards the Vodacom Bulls subsequent week. In Hendy, Ollie Sleightholme, Tommy Freeman, James Ramm, and George Furbank if match, they’ve a humiliation of riches within the again three division, which Dowson believes is an enormous contributor to his aspect’s success this season.
“There’s a great deal of lads who’re determined to play”, mentioned Dowson. One of many issues we have been blessed with this season is the competitors inside the squad. All through that long term of video games we had plenty of totally different gamers representing and contributing.
“We left plenty of gamers out this week who have been unfortunate to not become involved, in order we undergo and choose up bits and items, we have to relaxation and rotate, we have got to have belief as a training group to present these guys some alternatives.
“It will get heavy, however we would reasonably be in that scenario than not”.
Quite a lot of gamers, significantly within the backline, have epitomised Saints’ power in depth this yr. Sleightholme, Ramm, and Tom James have established themselves as high class Premiership gamers while Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith, Furbank and Fraser Dingwall have all taken their video games to the subsequent stage.
Nonetheless, this well-known win towards Munster – Northampton’s first Champions Cup knockout victory since beating Perpignan 23-7 in a semifinal method again in 2011 – can be remembered for Hendy’s breakthrough, even when it might not eclipse the coming-of-age efficiency exhibited by Smith in Saints’ pool stage victory over the identical aspect at Thomond Park in January.
“He [Hendy] scored in academy nook!” mentioned Dowson. “The journey he went on final season at Bedford, week in week out taking part in Championship rugby. Coming on this yr he moved out of academy home and moved in with Angus Scott-Younger, that is a maturity factor.
He had a superb preseason, began the season very well, then he had a very irritating damage. The extra George performs, the higher he will get, and he had an enormous contribution right this moment. He is a freak of an athlete.”
“The gamers spend plenty of time when it comes to find out how to beat individuals, find out how to create area find out how to use your expertise whether or not it is footwork, fend, energy. Hendy’s been blessed with fairly a couple of of these various things, he is athletic sufficient to beat anyone.”
The win within the context of Saints’ season can also be very important. They slipped to a shock 52-21 loss to Bristol of their first recreation again after the Six Nations, and wanted to show that their consequent 41-30 win over Saracens was them writing off the Bristol recreation as a one off.
“[We needed to bounce back] huge time”, mentioned Dowson. “We did not speak about it an excessive amount of, Courtney [Lawes] mentioned a couple of bits in a gathering, Fin [Smith] mentioned a couple of bits, we weren’t fairly in the best area towards Bristol and I believed the response final week and our capability to be constant in that area this week towards two unbelievable sides is testomony to the maturity of the taking part in group”.
With momentum firmly regathered from their ten match successful streak between November and March, they will now look forward to their house quarterfinal towards the Bulls, who dismantled Lyon 59-19 on Saturday, with confidence.
“We watched them yesterday as a training group”, mentioned Dowson. “The ability and athleticism all through that group, then you definately’ve received the expertise of Willie le Roux, only a very gifted group.
“We’re clearly going to spend so much extra time them however I noticed the pack weights within the recreation and there is some huge males knocking about so we have got to verify we’re prepared for that and never get too distracted with what they carry to the desk.
“We perceive what a part of our recreation must be at its finest to get a end result”.
Written by Tom Jeffreys
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