Saints boss Dowson responds to speculation linking Furbank with Harlequins

Full-back Furbank has been linked with a move to Harlequins, with The Telegraph reporting that he has held talks with the club from the Twickenham Stoop.

The 29-year-old is the Saints captain and an England international, making 133 appearances for his club and 14 for his country.

Saints have already tied Fin Smith, Alex Mitchell, Fraser Dingwall and Alex Coles to new deals since the start of the season, but they face a battle to keep all of their star-studded squad together as they are not able to spend to the level of some other PREM sides.

"It's a massive challenge (trying to keep all of the players), and it's credit to the coaching group, to Sam (Vesty) and Radders (Lee Radford) and all of those," Saints boss Dowson said at Wednesday's media session.

"The challenge is huge to keep all of those players because they play really well - and when they play really well, they become valuable, when they become valuable they become expensive, and their agents know that.

"George Furbank, and every other player who is out of contract, would be insane not to talk to other clubs, to find out what other opportunities are out there because they've got to make a balanced, thought-out, sensible decision around their future and what they're going to do this year, next year and after rugby.

"I see the reports around him chatting to different clubs, and I think that's exactly what he should be doing.

"We will, of course, put our best foot forward because we want to keep George and all those players.

"In the same vein, we wanted to keep Lewis Ludlam, we wanted to keep Dave Ribbans, we wanted to keep Alex Moon, we wanted to keep Temo Mayanavanua, we wanted to keep Juarno Augustus.

"These lads play well and, at some point, the offer outside is going to be better than the offer inside, in their opinion, and that's the tightrope we've got to walk, making sure we keep the right people and we support them in whatever they choose to do for the remainder of the season.

"I see the reports, I understand them, we would love to keep George. He's come right through the system, he's the epitome of everything we try to do with development.

"Seeing him be captain of the club and playing international rugby is exactly what we're about, but it's hard to balance it out from a financial point of view."

Furbank came through the Saints Academy and has gone on to become a key figure for club and country.

"His quality as a player is he's skillful enough to play international rugby at 10 when he's a full-back and I don't need to say any more than that," Dowson added.

"He's capable of playing 10 for us and doing all those different things.

"He's an outstanding, world-class full-back and I'm pretty sure (England boss) Steve (Borthwick) would have had him in his (autumn) squad if he'd been available.

"There were even people talking about him being an outside shot for the Lions so we're talking about a top-level player, but that doesn't take into account his character and how good he is off the field as well.

"He spoke really well to me at the start of the season about what he would have done differently from a leadership point of view throughout a torrid year for himself last year, putting the team first and how he would communicate with the group from a leadership point of view.

"So if you put those two things together, I can see why clubs would be falling over themselves to get him involved."