Dowson delighted with ruthless Saints

Jim Mallinder’s men cruised to a 43-14 victory at the Kassam Stadium, returning to the top of the Aviva Premiership table in the process.

It was a comprehensive success that ensured Welsh would not claim a shock first win of the season.

And Dowson, who captained Saints, was delighted with the display as he and his team-mates warmed up for Saturday’s Champions Cup trip to Treviso in style.

“I’m very happy with it to be honest,” said Dowson. “We went there saying we were going to be professional and ruthless and we scored seven tries.

“We were disappointed to concede twice but they were a side who are desperate and threw everything at us.

“In the most part we defended well and though we’ve got lessons to learn going into Treviso, if you’d said you can have a 43-14 win I’d have taken it.”

Calum Clark opened the scoring for Saints at the Kassam and they scored two quickfire tries before the break to truly take command.

They added four more after the interval to wrap up the bonus-point success and Dowson was happy to grind it out.

He said: “It takes time to break them down because there are a lot of lads in there - Tommy May, Dean Schofield, young lads in the back row - who care about it and get stuck in.

“The difference in quality of players isn’t massive but our drill eventually told and that gave us space out wide.

“You have to wear sides down and we just about did that on Sunday.”