Dowson hails Saints' 'hunger and desperation' after victory against Bath

Fin Smith slotted a penalty with the final kick of the game to secure a bonus-point Gallagher Premiership success against the current league leaders.

Saints were down to 14 men at the time as Alex Mitchell was yellow carded in an incident that allowed Finn Russell to kick Bath ahead.

But the black, green and gold would not be denied as they secured a vital victory that kept their top-four hopes alive.

"Everyone's aware of it (the gap to the play-off places)," Dowson said. "We can do the maths, we can see the table, but it doesn't do us any good talking about it - we have to worry about what happens on the pitch, how we approach games, how we start games, how we start the second half.

"We've got a very, very capable group of lads and we showed a lot of that hunger and desperation that we needed today."

Dowson added: "We started well, 19-0 up after 15 minutes, but you know that Bath are a quality group and they're going to race back into it.

"In the second half it was pretty scrappy and we didn't really get into our game as much as we had in the first half.

"There's lots of good stuff in there but one thing you can't coach is grit, heart and all those sorts of things, and I think we saw that today."

Smith was named man of the match for an incredible individual showing in attack and defence.

"It's one of the things when we first saw him play at Worcester - Sam (Vesty) identified his defensive traits as well as his attacking traits," Dowson said.

"He's someone who makes a lot of tackles, he made a lot of good ones, made a great one down in the 22 and with his attacking game, he's an outstanding player.

"Fin had been disappointed with a couple of kicks he'd missed before that so when I said to him 'well done', he said 'makes up for the two I missed before it'.

"I was delighted (when Smith slotted the kick)."

With other results over the weekend not going their way, Saints were 14 points off fourth going into the game against Bath.

But Dowson said: "We didn't really talk about it being a must-win game.

"Every game is a must-win game, but what we did talk about is the fact we're running out of chances, running out of lives.

"The league's at halfway, we're going back round again and we're adrift so we need to start stringing some performances together.

"What's been frustrating and the reason I lost my rag at Saracens at half-time is because the quality of this group is very high and we can get performances out on the pitch at times.

"We've just been inconsistent through the first half of the season but last week and this week, we saw intensity throughout the game - and that's probably what's most pleasing."