Dowson proud of Saints' Champions Cup campaign but left to rue frustrating first half at Croke Park

But he wants his players to celebrate their Investec Champions Cup campaign after they fell agonisingly short in Saturday’s semi-final clash at a sold-out Croke Park.

Saints had headed to Dublin hoping to make it seven wins from seven in this season's competition, having lost their past 10 Champions Cup matches going into this campaign.

But the black, green and gold got off to a sluggish start, allowing Leinster to take control thanks to two tries from James Lowe inside the opening 16 minutes.

Lowe completed his hat-trick early in the second period, but Saints mounted a comeback, scoring through George Hendy and Tom Seabrook as they threatened to turn the tables on their hosts.

But they couldn't quite find the final try that would have earned them a place in the May 25 showpiece.

"I felt like the longer the game was 20-10, the more it fell into our hands in terms of that pressure," Saints boss Dowson said.

"We came more and more into the game and all of the substitutions had a big impact on that. It's been one of our strengths this season, that strength in depth. Guys coming in, guys who have come off the bench, they've had an impact.

"Elliot Millar Mills did it from a set piece point of view, and Sam Matavesi in the loose as well.

"There's loads of positives in terms of those lads coming in, but the frustration is that we didn't quite get our game going in the first half to create that pressure.

"If you give Leinster a 17-point lead going into that last 20 minutes, it's going to be tough."

But Dowson stressed his pride in his players.

He said: "When we set out on the European campaign, we said we wanted to challenge ourselves against the best sides to see who we were as a group and in terms of our togetherness, it speaks volume about our game.

"There's clearly things we need to be better at and I'm hoping that the experience of today will help us to do that moving forward.

"The first thing we've got to do is make sure we put this to bed, to have a drink together and make sure we celebrate what that campaign was.

"Then we've got to prepare for Gloucester appropriately into next week.

"We spoke a lot this week about wanting to play against the best sides and in the best stadiums. This is a historic venue and we were excited about the opportunity of playing in front of 82,000 people.

"Of course we'd love to be in this situation year on year.

"We're losing some players this summer and next year is a new story but we've got to make sure we finish this story first."