{"id":283293,"date":"2025-11-25T22:54:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T22:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/283293\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T22:54:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T22:54:17","slug":"its-hugely-disappointing-for-fin-phil-dowson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/283293\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s hugely disappointing for Fin’: Phil Dowson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Northampton<\/a> Saints boss Phil Dowson<\/a> admits that Fin Smith has returned to Franklin\u2019s Gardens with a \u201cpoint to prove\u201d after a disappointing Autumn internationals campaign with England.<\/p>\n

Smith, 23, started four of England\u2019s five games in the Six Nations<\/a> to earn a place on the Lions<\/a> tour to Australia, but appears to now be behind George Ford<\/a> and Marcus Smith<\/a> in Steve Borthwick\u2019s pecking order.<\/p>\n

He came off the bench against Australia<\/a> and, despite looking impressive at fly-half in the 38-18 win over Fiji, missed out on the wins over the All Blacks<\/a> and Argentina<\/a> with Smith preferred for the replacements.<\/p>\n

But Dowson believes that Smith, who is likely to feature for the Saints against Bristol<\/a> Bears this weekend, is more than equal to the challenge of coming back from what is seen as the first real setback of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cFin is obviously disappointed that he hasn\u2019t played more, but George Ford has been excellent, and England<\/a> have been playing very well, so he hasn\u2019t had as much opportunity as he would have liked to have done.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the Six Nations, he was the bona fide starter for England ahead of Marcus Smith<\/a>, who only a year before had dropped a goal against France, and everyone said this is who we are going to build upon.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, things change quickly. George Ford had an excellent summer tour to Argentina. He has a huge amount of experience and leadership that Steve (Borthwick) values.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s hugely disappointing for Fin, who, after the Six Nations, would have thought, \u2018I\u2019m going on the Lions tour\u2019, the pathway is set in front of me. But it changes and changes quickly and is out of your control.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is frustrated that he has missed the chance to have four games in this block to cement his place and is going to have to go back and prove himself all over again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has come back with a chip on his shoulder and with a point to prove, and he had huge energy today, coming straight back in,\u201d said Dowson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northampton Saints boss Phil Dowson admits that Fin Smith has returned to Franklin\u2019s Gardens with a \u201cpoint to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-283293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}