Gibson 'in really good form' as he gets stuck in at Saints again

Gibson left the club at the end of last month in what boss Chris Boyd labelled ‘a redundancy’ as Saints were forced to cut costs.

But with Tom Wood now ruled out for the rest of the season, Gibson has made a rapid return, rejoining Saints as injury cover.

He has been back at Franklin’s Gardens this week, and forwards coach Dowson is delighted that Saints got him signed up again before another club managed to.

“We’re still in the same season and if he’d been playing for a different club it would have been kind of weird,” Dowson said.

"It’s great to have him back in the environment and he got plenty of stick from the boys this week for missing the running section of pre-season.

“It’s almost as if he’s never been away.

“He joined training on Tuesday and he seemed in really good form.

“He’s got a young family and spent a long time in lockdown with his boys so he really enjoyed that.

“He seems in pretty good spirits.

“It was just cruel luck that led to him not being kept on in the first place. "We all wanted to keep him and I think he was keen to stay and we were in the middle of negotiations when the coronavirus happened.

“It’s been a bit of a weird process with Jamie but he’s a bright lad and he understands the situation.

“Regardless of whatever else has happened, the one thing you can be sure of is that whenever he is playing, on a Wednesday or a Saturday, he’ll be full on and giving everything.”

Gibson’s presence continues to prove vital in driving standards at Saints.

Dowson explained: “From a personal point of view, Gibbo is very experienced and very bright so what he’ll do is he’ll challenge me - he says ‘why don’t we do this, why don’t we do that?’ - and he’ll fire a lot of ideas at me.

“It makes me then have to really be clear on what I want.

“He thinks of different ways of doing stuff and he’s a really good challenge for the coaching staff in terms of how we want to play the game.

“Gibbo’s great for the environment in terms of those questions he asks of the coaches.”

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