Dowson salutes 'ice cold' Pater and Saints' 'gold' game drivers after Red Bulls win

Entrusted with the 15 shirt following the summer departure of last season's club captain, George Furbank, Academy graduate Pater showed no nerves as he delivered a try treble against Newcastle Red Bulls.

Tommy Freeman also cashed in with a hat-trick of his own as Saints produced a sublime attacking performance, scoring nine tries in total.

Discussing England Under-20s star Pater, who was making just his 12th senior appearance for Saints, Dowson smiled and said: "He's absolutely fuming by the way - he said Fin Smith got man of the match and he doesn't know what he has to do!

"He's been great, he's ice cold and we saw last season what a quality player he is.

"He beats people, he's got a high skill level, he's still got loads to learn but he's an outstanding talent."

Newcastle, who invested heavily in their squad during the summer, pushed Saints at times, forcing the home side into periods of lengthy defence.

However, Dowson's men often passed the test before turning on the style at the other end of the field.

"We want a really competitive top-flight league and you saw tonight that they (Red Bulls) are going to be very good this year," said Saints boss Dowson, who is a former Newcastle player.

"Watching them through pre-season, they've gone fast, they want to play and they want to put air on the ball and they want to go hard.

"They've signed some unbelievable players and over time, those processes will stick and they'll get that cohesion, so we were under no illusions about the challenge today and how good they are, particularly when they move the ball fast.

"One of the things we talked about was that we don't want to set our expectations so high that we don't celebrate when we get wins and good performances.

"You see people like Fin Smith and Alex Coles - they drive a hard deal, they're very, very ambitious, they push very hard so we've got to try to strike that balance between celebrating when it's good and then going after things that we need to.

"In top-quality squads you have those characters who are not waiting for a coach or a meeting - they're saying it on the field at the time and having those boys driving levels is gold for a coach.

"To see them driving that means we can sit and make sure overview wise we're going in the right direction."