Northampton boss opens up on his relationship with Steve Borthwick and the ‘intense’ challenges that lead to ’emotionally exhausted’ players

Northampton Saints boss Phil Dowson has opened up on the struggles that club coaches face when it comes to releasing players for international duty.

The club v country debates have raged on for decades, but with rugby’s congested fixture lists, it’s more prevalent than ever.

Appearing on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast, Dowson praised England head coach Steve Borthwick for his communication skills surrounding England-eligible players, claiming that the duo have a great working relationship.

Despite this, the Saints boss admitted that he has to work very hard to ensure that the players are managed “emotionally and physically” in the intense merry-go-round of professional rugby.

Northampton have a large number of stars in and around the England set-up, which is great for the players and the squad morale, but can also prove challenging in terms of not overworking them.

Fortunately for Dowson, most England matches no longer take place on the same weekend as PREM or European games. The PREM Rugby Cup – for which many teams field rotation squads – generally coincides instead.

The “carrot” of international selection

While the “carrot” of international selection greatly outweighs any cons, Dowson often still has to deal with the flipside.

“There are positives to it,” said Dowson. “But also the negative is, look at Fin Smith last year. He goes from being on the bench against Ireland and France, and then he’s an England starter, and he comes back and he’s emotionally exhausted.

“You look at Henry Pollock, who wasn’t involved, playing England 20s for two games, and then he starts and scores against Wales. And then I’m saying, ‘Derby weekend, let’s go’.

“You have to manage them emotionally and physically, because it is intense. It’s intense playing week-to-week European and PREM games, then you’re dropping into an environment where there’s 80,000 people, and Steve’s going, ‘I want you to go now’.

“And then they come back and I go, ‘how was it? Is it good? It’s Leicester this weekend.’ That’s where it’s hard. It’s understanding where that burden is, of where they are. And sometimes that goes the other way.

“Fraser Dingwall goes away for six weeks, hasn’t played and is furious. He’s just so frustrated, like, ‘I’ve trained really well. I’m not getting game time’, etc, etc. You’ve also got to manage that as well. It’s a very interesting sort of spread of situations that you have to deal with.”

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“This is the pathway”

International selection is part and parcel of performing well, and the Northampton boss doesn’t begrudge that.

“It would be very contradictory of me to sit in a meeting with prospective players and academy lads and say, ‘We want to develop you to be the best you can be. We’re going to try to create an environment that facilitates that ambition,’ and then go, ‘but we don’t want you to play international rugby’.

“That IS the pathway.

“There are some issues in terms of crossover and how you manage players throughout the year. There’s always going to be those issues.”

However many issues there are, Dowson believes the incentive is worth it.

“It’s such a huge carrot for the players, and I can talk to Steve and say, ‘Steve, this is what we see in his game, and the message, if it comes from you, is infinitely more powerful’ because that’s the aspirational level that they want to get to. So we’ll try and use that to really drive those players.

“The playing group can now see a pathway for so many players who have done it on that journey.”

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