{"id":327647,"date":"2025-12-21T05:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T05:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327647\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T05:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T05:32:11","slug":"i-think-he-has-been-one-of-our-best-signings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327647\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I think he has been one of our best signings’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Northampton<\/a> director of rugby Phil Dowson<\/a> felt his side seized control of their Gallagher PREM clash with Sale<\/a> right from the start as they recorded a thumping 47-21 victory.<\/p>\n

Three tries in the opening 17 minutes marked the beginning of what was a dominant performance from Saints at the cinch Stadium at Franklin\u2019s Gardens as they moved up to second in the table.<\/p>\n

Just points difference separates them and new leaders Exeter and they will head to champions Bath<\/a> next Saturday full of confidence after running in seven tries in total.<\/p>\n

Dowson said: \u201cThere have been some really good bits in the last fortnight, but the team was also aware Pau<\/a> made changes, the Bulls<\/a> made changes, so sometimes you\u2019re waiting for a team to tip up and you know will challenge you, and we knew Sale will do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I thought particularly in the first half we were bang at it and I thought we were very good at times.<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure how controlled I was when they were coming back into the game \u2013 I was nervous because I know how much quality they have \u2013 but I felt we had built a good lead and had the ascendency in lots of different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh Kemeny\u2019s try had me off my seat, I thought it was exceptional and I think the athleticism Josh has is sometimes underestimated.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is very fast, he is very athletic and I think he has been one of our best signings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northampton began with tries from Henry Pollock<\/a>, George Hendy<\/a> and Toby Thame<\/a> and after Tom O\u2019Flaherty struck for Sale, Kemeny\u2019s sensational individual score put the hosts 26-7 ahead.<\/p>\n

Hendy scored his second before O\u2019Flaherty and Arron Reed<\/a> pulled back tries for the Sharks, with George Furbank<\/a> and Tom Pearson<\/a> then rounding things off for Saints.<\/p>\n

Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson said: \u201cSomething we mentioned all week was around coming out the blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey score early and get their tails up and that\u2019s just what they\u2019ve done all season, but we clearly weren\u2019t at the races.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo some degree, that was us all game because our basics were off all game.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy that I mean the set-piece where you\u2019ve just got to guarantee your own possession; line-outs and the scrum, which improved but it still wasn\u2019t dominant, and we expected to be dominant and we were not clinical enough in the opposition 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrategically, I think the coaches got it wrong at the start of the game \u2013 it kind of leaned into Northampton\u2019s attacking style.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the work rate, which the players admitted to, was a little bit off in that first half, which was addressed and got a bit better, but the basics were not enough all game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northampton director of rugby Phil Dowson felt his side seized control of their Gallagher PREM clash with Sale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-327647","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\/327647","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=327647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}