'I'm about 92, 93kgs... I don't like feeling too heavy when I'm not strong enough to move it quickly'
Franklin’s Gardens is an English rugby beauty spot, one of those architecturally charming places where every player should always aspire to play. Last Sunday, though, it became a ghoulish graveyard for Fraser Dingwall and his luckless Northampton colleagues.
There they were, fully deserving of their seven-point lead against Gallagher Premiership leaders Bristol coming down the finishing straight only for it all to end up horribly going wrong and they instead trooped off devastated and beaten by seven.
It made for car crash television if you were a Saints fan. The clock read 74:37 when Andy Uren whipped out an immaculate, long-ranging pass from near the goalposts for Luke Morahan to scoot in at the corner for the converted leveller. Then, with the clock having only advanced to 76:23, there was that man Uren again being an absolute pain, diving in under the posts after Bristol has unstoppably countered with the ball that spilt loose on the floor from the restart kick chase.
A nightmare had unfolded in the space of just 106 agonising seconds, leaving Northampton six points off the fourth and final playoff spot held by Sale rather than that gap being cut to half that margin. All the more brutal was that it was Bristol who had done the damage, re-opening the aching December 4 wound that was the Bears stealing Ashton Gate victory against the Saints with a clock-in-the-red Sam Bedlow penalty.
“It’s cruel,” shrugged Dingwall, taking the time to chat to RugbyPass in the run-up to this Saturday’s Northampton trip to Worcester where the prospective England midfielder will be on the bench. “In fairness to Bristol, they always seem to steal a lot of games at the death so maybe they have got on a good habit of it and it isn’t purely down to us, maybe they have just got luck on their side.
Showbrisness. ?#NORvBRI | #BristolBearspic.twitter.com/gRFb8h1uod
— Bristol Bears ? (@BristolBears) March 21, 2021
“Yeah, it was a tough one and at the end of the game it was very hard to take because I felt like we had fought back so well and had controlled it… with high performance sport the outcome is the key thing and we didn’t win. That does weigh on the mind but there were so many positives in the game and there was a two, three-minute period of us unfortunately compounding a few errors.
“I couldn’t really believe it to be honest when they were suddenly seven points up and it all happened in the space of a minute and a half. There wasn’t a huge amount we did get wrong and it was horrible, a pretty horrible feeling. You feel pretty empty.”
Thankfully, Saints boss Chris Boyd didn’t bag them for the self-destruction. “He would be just incredibly frustrated and almost in disbelief, which is pretty much reflected in the players. He is not someone who is going to get angry. He is very much the same as the players. He would just be incredibly frustrated that another one of those results had slipped away from us this season.”
It has been the story of Northampton’s campaign – plenty of encouraging endeavour interspersed with hard-luck stories, a carry-over from their post-lockdown run in the resumed 2019/20 season where they weekly seemed to find a new way of losing. A bit of consistency, though, and it wouldn’t take long for them to be more constantly in the conversation about who will be this season’s semi-finalists next June.
“The mood is good,” reported Dingwall despite the anguish of seeing some Northampton victories snatched away at the death. “We are showing that when we get things right and perform how we know we can, we can turn over any side and that has shown in our results. Wins against top teams like Exeter and Sale. We just need to get to the point that when we beat a team like Sale that we then beat Bristol the week after and become consistent against top teams.”
Enough of the Northampton collective, though: How is Dingwall himself trucking along in these extraordinary times? He was involved in two October England training camps and was also chosen in the squad for the Barbarians match.
We all know what sadly happened to that aborted fixture and it has since been challenging for the centre to build momentum back with his club, cancelled matches, illness and hectic competition for starting slots limiting him to five starts at No13 and five more appearances so far as a sub in a season where only 13 of Northampton’s 18 scheduled Premiership and Champions Cup games up to now have taken place.
“I feel like I’m going reasonably well,” he reported. “It’s nice to be back in the team after I was out for a couple of weeks. It’s always tough to get back in because every other week there seems to be a game called off because of Covid cases so there isn’t the rotation normally demanded of the players. I’ve just found a good chance to get my head down and work quite hard off the pitch.”
The footwork from FRASER DINGWALL again! ?
Great line from the Centre to find Tom James for the try. ?
Excellent start to the game and @SaintsRugby are right in it! ?#GallagherPrem pic.twitter.com/k2J4eoDdDA
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) March 7, 2021
Set to turn 22 on April 7, last week was the 46th appearance in three seasons for Dingwall at Northampton and while it is generally said that the No13 position is the hardest on the pitch to defend in, he is getting more and more acquainted with the demands of this role as time goes by.
“Experience always helps,” he explained. “It is very different week to week because you constantly come up against different styles of play and different threats. I don’t think it necessarily gets easier, you just start to recognise things occasionally a bit quicker just through your preparation more than anything.
“It’s constantly just trying to take things from different teams. You see impressive things in some teams, especially around that channel, how they manipulate attackers and turn people back inside when they have got a massive overlap or they are coming through the middle and you’re able to push them to the edge.
‘It’s constantly watching rugby and taking things from the top teams. Intercepts are a good one, there has been a good few in the Six Nations. Any time you see an intercept, that is a pretty good example of someone who is alive to the attackers and ended up stealing their ball.”
View this post on Instagram
All the while Dingwall is keen to pack a more powerful punch in the Northampton midfield. He’s not the most physically daunting player you will find. No-one will ever be nicknaming him The Eclipse for his size, that’s for sure. But he has used the past year to hone his technique and ensure he is steadily at what he feels is his best fighting weight.
“I feel I’m okay at the moment. Around the first Covid lockdown I managed to get in a really good conditioning block and ticked off a few physical goals that I had been wanting to ever since I had started at the club.
“It’s the modern way of the game that people come in different shapes and sizes. I’m not one of the biggest centres so I have to make up for it with intent and mental attitude towards the contact area and probably technique so I do a lot of work because I’m not necessarily blessed with huge amounts of size and strength.
“I’m about 92, 93kgs. It’s pretty steady for the whole of this season, which is quite nice. I’m someone who loses weight quite quickly and it’s about having it pretty steady. That is probably a pretty good weight for me. The only thing I want to do now is to continually add more strength and power. I don’t like feeling too heavy when I’m not strong enough to move it quickly and so I’m pretty happy with the weight I am at the moment.”
https://twitter.com/SaintsRugby/status/1371197439558946822
On-the-money tackle technique is all the more imperative these days in a climate where red cards for getting the contact wrong are two a penny. “It’s one of those things where the refs are trying to force the change around that contact area to the head and that is rightly so because it is a key part to the game and some of that can definitely be made a lot safer,” continued Dingwall.
“It is going to have an immediate effect of a lot of red cards but soon there will be a forcible change and people will start to change their habits and techniques and that is probably the best thing about it. It is going to put a large emphasis on good tackle technique which on the whole makes it safer for the tackler as well as the person who is being tackled.”
The Cambridge-born Dingwall was 14 when he first became attached to Northampton. He began representative rugby playing for Scotland at U16s and U18s before reverting to England, captaining them at the 2019 Junior World Championship and for that year’s Six Nations.
National allegiance is a huge source of pride for Saints. When Boyd announced his team to play Sale the other week, the club took to Twitter with a tweet showing 15 England flags and a dozen asterisk denoting how twelve of the XV had come through the Northampton academy, Dingwall among them.
View this post on Instagram
It’s a homegrown success he is rather chuffed with. “That is just a credit to the academy system that I and several others have come through and from first-hand experience, I can tell you that is exceptional,” he said.
“It’s due to time and attention, and the attitude of Chris Boyd since he has come in, he has put a lot into young English guys, a big focus on developing homegrown players, and that has been massive for the opportunity of myself and others. We are very thankful for him as other coaches would look to sign from abroad.
“We have got very good facilities here, everything is in one place and it’s a pretty tight-knit club. You’re able to work closely with your coaches and get quite honest feedback. It just leads to a good circle of getting better and finding new things to get better at. It’s a constant churn in terms of bringing out good young players.”
Our Starting XV tomorrow:
15 ???????*
14 ???????*
13 ???????*
12 ???????
11 ???????*
10 ???????*
9 ???????
1 ???????*
2 ???????*
3 ???????*
4 ???????*
5 ???????*
6 ???????
7 ???????*
8 ???????** @SaintsRugbyAcad product. pic.twitter.com/vjSqEihyCU
— Northampton Saints ? (@SaintsRugby) March 12, 2021
Comments on RugbyPass
Instead of apologising, try to act like an adult, fcknut.
1 Go to commentsLooks like the Force twisted his leg…ahem arm
5 Go to commentsScotland should change their name to the Barbarians
2 Go to commentsThe game was already over leave the bloke alone ….from a Welsh fan 😀👍
2 Go to commentsShamefully the Toulouse players acted like footballers, falling down feigning injury at the slightest knock. About time refs penalised this play acting.
7 Go to commentsAnother non Scot for the anti Scot Townsend. Soon there will be no Scottish born and bred players in the National team.
2 Go to commentsGreat comeback to the playing field by Richie Mo’unga after the loss of his father. A great performance by Richie . I know him well and he is a great guy. On and off the field one of the greatest for the Crusaders. Scott Robertson would have loved him in his All Black’s side. A very missed player and person.
2 Go to commentsYeah nah he comes across as a funny bloke, but that stopped abruptly after the Nutcracker Prince debacle✋
2 Go to commentsAt this point I can’t watch him without thinking he’s a dirty slimebag. He should have been banned for the same amount of time that Quinn was out. It took Tupaea near on a fricking year to get fit enough to play again and his leg will never be the same. The other crap thing is that he was at ABs level and now he has to claw his way back there when he could have had several games under his belt.
5 Go to commentsThe Black Ferns 7’s have been without Captain Sarah Hirini now since Dec 23 in Dubai where she suffered a bad ACL injury - hopefully she is on the road to recovery for Madrid and Paris. Now also have Tyler King and Shiray kaka on the Injured List but the Team still found a way to win in Singapore and claim the overall Title.
1 Go to commentsUtter grub, hope he gets his leg broken. Shocking he is still playing after intentionally breaking quinn tupaeas knee
5 Go to commentsGreat to see NZ 7s teams finally coming into form and playing at the level that is expected of them.
2 Go to commentsChief Cheapshot on the market again.
5 Go to commentsCrusaders went all in to buy Hotham and Kemara staight from Hamilton Boys. Then they picked up Reihana and Hohepa; all have been dropped for superstar Havili, who is a very good fullback, that’s it. Ennor and Goodhue were schoolboy stars too but went backwards at the Crusaders. Maybe they have finally decided to give another poach Levi Aumua the ball?
16 Go to commentsJoe S has some talent to pick from. The Reds loosies look the best in Super? Aus might just give Razor a headache this year. Int. experience v Cantab greenhorn:) Should be fun.
16 Go to commentsEnd to end play, “THE FANS” this game was entertainment of the best. The conditions added to the spectacle.
1 Go to commentsSorry to say, but sadly the sadas were just ordinary and havilli at 10 as an abs selection just won’t cut it. He’s better suited in the centre’s and is a victim of past charge down kicks, he’s too slow under pressure. There’s better talent further north and I don’t mean dmac however I believe razor will sort him out. A feature of his presents on the park is the fact that the guys will follow him.
16 Go to commentsMarler was brilliant throughout both in the scrum and open play. His slap made virtually no contact with Ramos who milked it for a penalty when he could have been a decent sportsman and laughed it off, it was non-violent and shouldn't have been penalised. Smith failed repeatedly to kick when necessary and put up a couple of bombs into the TLS 22 that just handed back possession at key moments to the other side.
3 Go to commentsCros was outstanding and rightly awarded France TVs player of the match award. Mallia was brilliant as usual (the y is below the 6 on a UK keyboard and he deserves better than that). Level also seems to have been scored harshly as he walked the ball into touch under pressure from a Lynagh kick from well outside his own half which should never have led to a 50-22. Agree with BullShark that Dupont, while class at times, seemed to go missing for patches in the second half with props, hookers and wings frequently filling in at 9 as he couldn't get off the deck and up to the next ruck on time. A 7 by his standards at best, his kicking was also too long, too often. Kinghorn's overall contribution was worth well more than a five.
7 Go to commentsThe Harlequins team must be in minus figures. Did the reporter actually watch the game?
7 Go to comments