Dowson 'over the moon' as Saints deliver special showing to win at Munster

The black, green and gold produced an incredible, stoic away showing as they prevailed 26-23 at Thomond Park despite having Curtis Langdon sent off just before the break.

Langdon was dismissed after his knee made contact with the head of Munster lock Tom Ahern, but Saints rallied and stuck in the game.

Fin Smith's boot was crucial as he kicked penalties, conversions and even a beauty of a drop goal.

And Saints eventually won it thanks to Sam Graham's score.

"I've celebrated pretty hard," said boss Dowson.

"I've lost my voice celebrating with the players and the coaches.

"We're all over the moon because it is such a big feat, it is so infrequent that it happens so we should celebrate that without going over the top.

"I'm delighted but, as you know, my media personality is a very dull one."

On the performance as a whole, Dowson said: "We made it difficult for ourselves, 13 men (George Furbank was yellow carded before Langdon was sent off) and the momentum goes out of the game.

"We lost that scoreboard pressure after we'd been good into the wind for that first 30 minutes of the first half.

"They came roaring back into it but I thought we were excellent in the last 20 minutes in terms of our ability to exert pressure and turn that pressure into points.

"We had a red card and a yellow card in that period at the end of the first half so down to 13 against a side like Munster, you're going to be under pressure.

"With three minutes left while we were down to 13, we talked about what it meant for the second half, how hard we had to work, what we needed to do differently.

"It shows a great belief and trust the lads have in the DNA of our game and each other as well."

So did Dowson think Langdon deserved to be dismissed by referee Tual Trainini for the first-half incident?

"I don't know, I'm not in the position to make those decisions," Dowson said.

"You see last night, Josh Caulfield, Bristol against Connacht, he gets red carded and I don't think he did that on purpose.

"I don't think Curtis did it on purpose but sometimes a knee, an elbow will hit someone in the head and those things happen.

"The referee has made a decision and the only thing we can do it make sure we adapt to it and we're clear with our messaging around how we deal with it."

Saints have claimed some incredible wins this season, delivering victories away to the likes of Saracens and Glasgow Warriors.

But Dowson admits the success at Thomond Park tops the lot.

"I think so, because of the historic difficulty of someone coming here to win in Europe." he said.

"Credit to Munster, in terms of their home record, in terms of what they've done over the years at home because only a few sides have won here and we wanted to add our names to that list.

"We saw it as a massive challenge, we knew it wasn't going to be easy but we also knew we had the ability to put them under massive pressure.

"We wanted to play in games where we were being challenged and that was one of those games.

"These are the places you want to be because experiences like this ask questions of you and we came up with the right answers.

"We're far from the finished product and we have to make sure we're ready for Newcastle next week.

"We can have some down time after that and make sure we're ready for after the Six Nations and we get our house in order for the last third of the season."

Smith's drop goal was reminiscent of when Ronan O'Gara landed one with the final kick of the game to leave Saints heartbroken back in November 2011.

Dowson played in that 23-21 defeat, but he wasn't chasing revenge at Thomond Park.

"I don't think it's about settling scores," he said.

"I thought Fin was outstanding as well as Mitch (Alex Mitchell) in terms of getting us in the right areas of the field.

"We had the wind behind us in the second half but we didn't just want to kick the leather off the ball because that's not the way to take advantage of it.

"We played at the right times, we kicked at the right times behind them and that drop goal was a very, very high level bit of skill in those conditions."