Dowson happy with 'heart and courage' but frustrated as Saints miss chances at Sale

Saints were beaten by Sale at Salford Stadium

But Dowson was left to rue how his side struggled to cope with the pressure that the Sharks applied in the second half.

Saints were just 10-3 down after 54 minutes of the Gallagher Premiership opening-day clash, but they shipped three quickfire tries as the chance to pick up a win got away from them.

It was frustration for the black, green and gold as they had enjoyed plenty of territory and possession before the concession of those scores.

They didn't lose belief though, battling until the end as two tries from Tom Collins and one from Ollie Sleightholme helped them to salvage a losing bonus point from the 29-22 defeat.

And Dowson, who was taking charge of his first competitive Saints game since taking over as director of rugby during the summer, said: "At 29-3 this game looked pretty ugly, but from that point on we stuck to our plans, the bench came on and made an impact, which is always important, and we took a point from it, which speaks a lot about the courage and heart of the group of players.

"We did give Sale an opportunity and they took it, and that gave us a bit of a mountain to climb at the end of the game.

"I thought in the first half we actually created loads and didn't convert - and that was the fundamental difference.

"We were poor at times, giving them those chances, but I really admire our heart in coming back towards the end. We just left it a little bit too late.

"There were a couple of things we obviously need to be better at, but pressure tells and we put ourselves under pressure in terms of possession and territory.

"When they had that opportunity in our 22, they took it, but we didn't take ours in the first half, which would have put them under a different type of scoreboard pressure.

"When they put that pressure on, we didn't deal with it as well as we could have done."

Dowson added: "Everyone knows we want quick ball and they are going to try to slow us down.

"We feel we've got a game plan that can hurt anyone, but we didn't execute it as well as we could have done, which was clearly Sale's plan.

"It's not all going to be smooth sailing so we need to work out where we can be better before we go and get London Irish (on Saturday)."