Dowson reveals 'immediate impact' sports psychologist made at Saints last season

And he says Dixon will continue to work with the players on how to improve ahead of the Gallagher Premiership title defence.

"We spent a lot of time last year trying to find the right psychologist and we went through lots of different ways of doing it," Dowson explained.

"It’s not an exact science, it is not an easy fix so we spent a lot of time talking to different people and towards the end of last season we had Oli Dixon come in and he had an immediate impact.

"He was then working with the British team in the Olympics. He has come in two days a week moving forward and it covers so many different things, in terms of pre-match routine, in terms of dealing with loss – as in losing games – in terms of separating your personal life from your game life because sometimes that can cross over and become an issue.

"There’s so many different things that the group can still get better at.

"We are a young group and we are learning as we are going along and, from a coaching point of view, we want to get better in terms of how that happens as well.

"Oli has been really important in guiding us around some of the things that are really important and one of those things is the leadership development.

"As those guys step up, and Luds (Lewis Ludlam) who was club captain, Courtney (Lawes) who is a club legend, Alex Waller, a previous club captain, all these lads vacate and it is about how can we grow these young men into leaders within our environment and Oli has been great at that."

Dixon has previously been an Academy psychologist at Premier League side Fulham and is currently a sports psychologist at English Institute of Sport.

He balances that with his work at Saints, which will see him help to prepare the champions for the campaign ahead.

"We've been waiting to get the whole squad to be together," Dowson said. "The issue with the diary was we had five weeks on then a week off, then we‘ve got a three-week block before we get into the Prem games.

"The five weeks for the England games post New Zealand ended last week, so they (the international players) had a transition week, so they were training but they weren’t training with the rest of the squad. This is the first week that we have all been together.

"Oli will also work in that space in terms of how do we define our success this season. What are the things that we really valued last year that we thought had a big impact on how we performed and how we behaved as a group? And what are the things we want to carry forward and what are the things we want to change, and what does change? Now you have won the title, what changes in terms of how the opposition treat you?

"In terms of how hungry we are, we haven’t got to that point yet, but that is in the offing."