Northampton Saints 'learned lots' from Leinster defeat at Croke Park last year

“There were loads that came out of it from a technical and tactical point of view but really more from how you deal with the pressure of big games and how you make sure you’re set," said Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson.

LESSONS LEARNED: Northampton Saints will return to Dublin this Saturday confident they will be better for their Croke Park experience of 12 months ago. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile.

Northampton Saints will return to Dublin this Saturday confident they will be better for their Croke Park experience of 12 months ago when they lock horns once more with Leinster in a Champions Cup semi-final reunion at Aviva Stadium.

Anyone expecting a repeat this weekend of Leinster’s previous knockout games this season, when Harlequins in the Round of 16 and Glasgow Warriors in the quarter-finals were each nilled while conceding a combined 114 points, should cast their minds back to last season’s last-four clash when Saints ran the home side extremely close having given Leo Cullen’s a 15-0 head start before eventually being pipped 20-17.

Northampton had been guilty of showing Leinster too much respect in the opening period and it took a Fin Smith penalty on 40 minutes to finally get the then English Premiership champions-elect on the scoreboard.

Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson believes lots of lessons were learned that day at GAA headquarters while his young, mostly homegrown team benefitted greatly from the experience, and not just in last June’s league play-offs, when Northampton beat defending champions Saracens in the domestic semi-final and then Bath in the Twickenham showpiece.

“I think we learned lots and it helped us in the semi-final and the final of the Premiership a month later about dealing with pressure of playing big games against good sides, how you start games,” Dowson said on Tuesday.

“There were loads that came out of it from a technical and tactical point of view but really more from how you deal with the pressure of big games and how you make sure you’re set.

"We have lots of players who played last year who will be using those lessons and that momentum from last year to get us going this year… it’s not as simple as just recreating that but at the same time looking back it was a good experience.

“That experience in Croke Park and having been a little bit frustrated in how we started has been a really good driver for us this season. We want to have another go at that sort of game. We want to have another test of that magnitude and that’s up this weekend.”

Dowson is a big admirer of Leinster’s firepower in attack and defence under Cullen and senior coach Jacques Nienaber, particularly in those European knockouts earlier this month.

“Glasgow and Harlequins are two of the best attacking sides in the tournament. I think Quins with Marcus Smith and the nines they carry and people like Alex Dombrandt, they’re unbelievable in attack, the same with Glasgow.

"I think they’ve got more linebreaks than anyone else bar Leinster in the URC so to be able to nil them on the big stage is very, very impressive.

“That speaks to two things in my mind: Nienaber’s system and what’s he instilled in those players and the ability and the work of those players to execute the system. They’ve bought in, they’re very physical, they’re making good reads.

“If you’ve got those two things, the group are emotionally engaged and willing to work hard, and they’re good players, and you’ve got a very strong system being coached really well, it looks like a difficult defence to break down.”

Yet there is confidence in the Saints camp they have the game to unsettle Leinster more effectively this time around.

“I think we’ve got the capability from an attack point of view to create pressure on their blitz D and their press D and that’s easy for me to say that now because I’m not running into the blitz D,” Dowson said.

“We’ve talked a bit about that. Basically, it then comes down to defensively can we live with their all-court game. It’s not going to be a case of their just going to beat you up front. It’s not just a case they’ve got great shape, they’ve got great ball carriers, they got off-loaders, they’ve got set pieces that’s going to be a challenge.

“One of the things we talk about every year at the beginning of the campaign is that we want to play against the best sides in the world and test ourselves and that’s what we are going to do, test ourselves in the set-piece, attack and defence.”