By Ben Grundy
Northampton Saints are without five English internationals this week as Phil Dowson’s side travel to the south-west. George Furbank, Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith, Ollie Sleightholme, and Trevor Davison will all miss the game while training with England in Spain, leaving Saints with a significantly reduced squad.
Director of Rugby Phil Dowson says it is a ‘huge shame’ that his players are absent, he took a positive angle on the situation: “Yeah, it’s a huge shame, obviously we are missing five guys.
“That makes it tricky but that also makes it really exciting because that then tests the depth of our squad, and we can find out about people under massive pressure.
“There have been so many people knocking on my door and saying I want to play and now they get the opportunity to do that.”
One of those knocking heavy on Dowson’s door is George Makepeace-Cubitt who will debut for the Saints at fly-half in the absence of Smith.
With a tough test away from home again, the Saints’ boss praised the Bears: “They have been fantastic entertainment, they have a very different style to pretty much everyone in the league.
“They have a very good lineout in both attack and defence, they have a strong scrum, they have great ball carriers.
“(They are a) Really good outfit, playing entertaining rugby and I think Randall and MacGinty have been outstanding.”
Ashton Gate tends to not have favoured Saints in the past, losing there by heavy margins in the past couple of years.
“We haven’t got it quite right (previously) and I think we need to make sure psychologically that we are in the right space but also, we are ready for the game they are going to bring.
“I think they have evolved their game a little bit and it is even more dangerous than it was.
“Defensively we are super connected, and we are working hard to shut down some of their options,” Dowson said.
Scoring on his return from injury at the weekend, George Hendy is ‘happy to be back’ and analysed the challenge Bristol propose: “I think they are looking to run the ball from absolutely anywhere on the pitch.
“It will be a really good challenge and will really test our defence, and we are going to try and not make it a basketball score.
“We are really determined this week to stop the scoring as much as they have been and just be solid in our defence.”
Tom Pearson echoed his winger and believes the focus should be on defence: “We are going to try and stop them (scoring), defensively that will be our focus as soon as we score, the next D (defensive) set is going to be important just so we stop that ‘pitter patter’ that they are after.”
“Our home form has been great but away from home we have to improve that as much as possible.
“It’s exciting for us and it’s time for boys to step up.”
Saints travel to Bristol for a Friday night game under the lights at Ashton Gate, where they once suffered their heaviest Premiership defeat, kick-off at 7.45 pm.
