Waller looking forward to seeing how far Dowson can take Saints in the future

And the recently retired prop is looking forward to seeing how far his friend and former team-mate can take the black, green and gold in the coming years.

Dowson has been in charge of Saints for the past two seasons, and he has just led them to a memorable Gallagher Premiership title success.

He also steered them to the semi-finals of the Investec Champions Cup last season, with Saints just falling agonisingly short against Leinster at Croke Park.

Dowson was named Gallagher Premiership director of rugby of the season at the end of a sensational campaign that saw Saints finish top of the table and go on to claim the silverware at Twickenham.

And that means he has claimed the league crown with Saints as both a player and boss.

Waller played alongside him during the double-winning campaign of 2014 and was managed by him during the recent title triumph.

And when asked whether he always knew Dowson would become a top boss, Waller joked: "Yeah, probably because he ran the world's worst printer business so he had to do something!

"It's certainly impressive to see how he's gone.

"The foundation of the relationship between me and Dows is friendship. We were friends and team-mates for years, long before any sort of coaching relationship was developed.

"It's probably quite unusual because I wouldn't say there's many players that played with their DOR for so long, did so much and were so close as a unit.

"It was certainly an interesting relationship and one that had its ups and downs as a whole but generally the trust we developed in playing together helped us to have some honest conversations that were a bit uncomfortable at times.

"But the way he's handled it, the way he's grown and continues to grow, we've only seen the tip of the iceberg with the coaching group as a whole.

"Sam (Vesty) is probably the best coach I've ever worked with, Radders (Lee Radford) the same, the amount of detail Ferg (Matt Ferguson) puts into scrums probably kept me going for a couple more years than if I was sticking under the same regime.

"Those coaches are the heartbeat of the club and they can drag skill and high standards out of everybody.

"I'm looking forward to seeing how the new crop go and Dows himself, going from a transition coach to DOR and doing more of less everything else in between, has been impressive to see and I'm looking forward to seeing the journey continue for him."