Western Daily Press

Gloucester had different priority – Phil

NORTHAMPTO­N Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson admitted to having sympathy for Gloucester counterpar­t George Skivington after the league leaders’ recordbrea­king 90-0 victory on Saturday secured a home semi-final in the Gallagher Premiershi­p.

The ninth-placed Cherry & Whites showed where their priorities lay by making a total of 12 changes to the team who defeated Benetton in the semifinals of the European Challenge Cup a week earlier, and their young, makeshift line-up was torn to shreds.

Northampto­n ran in 14 tries to rack up their biggest Premiershi­p win, the highest points total by a home team in the competitio­n’s history, and its second-widest margin of victory.

Dowson revealed: “I know George Skivington pretty well – I worked with him during the Six Nations – and there’s clearly different priorities going on.

“We had to do something in order to guarantee a home semi, and George is building towards a European final and also next season, so there were different motivating factors.

“It’s never nice to be on the end of a 90-0 humping but, at the same time, we had a job to do.

“I wanted to push the players to stay really focused on what that was and not get too distracted by the scoreline.

“So you’ve got to take that and we’ve all been there. We’ve all been on the end of those sort of games and you find out a lot about yourself and a lot about your team.

“I’m sure that George, Dom Waldouck and all those good lads at Gloucester will take that on moving forward.”

Ollie Sleighthol­me scored a hat-trick for Northampto­n, whose other tries came from George Furbank, Fraser Dingwall, Curtis Langdon (2), Alex Mitchell, Alex Waller, Sam Matavesi (2), Manny Iyogun, Alex Moon and Tom James.

Their extraordin­ary scoreline is only surpassed in the history of the Premiershi­p by Richmond’s 106-12 rout of Bedford in 1999.

Gloucester face South Africa’s Sharks in their Challenge Cup final a week on Friday, but first host bottom-of-the-table side Newcastle in their final league game this weekend.