Dowson 'couldn't be more proud' of Saints after Clermont success

It was a far more fun Friday night at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens this week as Dowson steered his side to a superb 46-24 Investec Champions Cup round of 16 win against Clermont Auvergne.

Saints scored seven tries on the night as they marched into the quarter-final, which will be against either Castres or Benetton at the Gardens next weekend.

The black, green and gold were back to their brilliant best against Clermont, pushing their French opponents to the limit and beyond.

And Dowson said: "It was a lot easier Friday evening than the last one here.

"I'm delighted with the performance, with how the group have stuck together over the past two weeks because it has been tough at times, and I'm delighted with how they got stuck in tonight.

"Over the past two weeks, we've taken a lot from it and at Sale (in the 27-24 defeat) last week, our energy, intent and mindset was right up there but we didn't execute very much and we couldn't exert enough pressure to actually get over the line.

"But fundamentally, to be within a score away from home, you're there or thereabouts, and that was a really good marker for us.

"It's much easier to coach execution, it's very hard to coach work rate and those other elements, and the boys came out and went for it tonight.

"They also executed a lot of stuff and although we know it was by no means perfect and we need to look at elements of our game again, it's fantastic for them to get both sides of the game going."

Dowson added: "After the Leicester game, I had loads of conversations with coaches and players, and Fraser Dingwall and Alex Coles actually stood up and said they wanted a meeting with the players only.

"They did that and what really came out of that meeting was they wanted to take ownership of it and they wanted to drive it.

"They didn't want to wait for Radders (Lee Radford), myself, Sam (Vesty) to be pushing from the sideline, and I couldn't be more proud of those two guys (Dingwall and Coles) and the rest of the group."