'Massive relief' as Dowson's Saints handle the heat to secure semi-final success

The black, green and gold boss was delighted with the way his players handled the pressure on the big occasion of the play-off semi-final at a sold-out cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens on Friday night.

Tom Litchfield bagged a first-half hat-trick and Saints kept kicking on after the break to secure a superb 45-31 success.

And when asked for his overriding emotion after the match, Dowson said: "Massive relief.

"You speak all season about trying to get your processes right and then the pressure's on.

"You're playing against a side that we had a tough experience against a month ago (Saints lost 41-17 at Leicester on May 9) and I felt we started a bit slowly but once we found our feet, we found some of that rhythm.

"We keep reminding ourselves that we said at the start of the season that this is what we wanted, and we wanted to enjoy that.

"You've just got to make sure that the playing group, with players like George Furbank, who scored twice, gets the opportunity to go out in a fitting way.

"One of the things we had a big focus on from last year, when we finished eight, was winning away from home. And if you don't get your set piece right away from home, particularly against a team who are as clinical and efficient in the opposition 22 as Leicester then you get round of round of pressure, which is what we had there last month.

"This evening, we managed to put a lot more of our game on the pitch by delivering that set piece which is such a huge factor with Sam Vesty et al.

"All those opportunities in the first half were created by us not exiting cleanly in our half, we give a chat-back penalty away and they're into our 22.

"That pressure game Leicester play is hard to deal with, and we continue to try to push in that 22 defence to be more effective at it."

Henry Pollock was at the heart of all that was good about Saints yet again.

And Dowson said: "You can see how super-confident he is from his whole career.

"I spoke to him this week and he said 'I need to focus more on my game and what I can do as opposed to letting them put me off', which is a lesson he maybe picked out of that game at Leicester last month.

"Henry gets a lot of attention but I'm proud of every player.

"Henry has the ability and the biggest ability he has, a bit like Courtney Lawes, is that he has the ability to learn from experiences.

"That's what's really impressive about him: how fast he picks things up."

Looking ahead to next Saturday's final, Dowson said: "We've got a general framework that we don't veer away from too frequently, but we'll take into account how tomorrow goes (in the game between Bath and Exeter Chiefs) and how boys pull up from today and make some very small adjustments on the back of that.

"Two years ago Lewis Ludlam spoke about it and we spoke about it before the European final last year, that these are the weeks you dream of.

"We've got to make sure we enjoy that, we've got to make sure we feel the pressure but we don't respond too heavily to that pressure.

"We talk about regular performance on a special occasion and today was a special occasion, for Furbs, for Manny (Iyogun, on his 100th Saints appearance), for lots of different reasons.

"Lots of our performance was very good, some of it wasn't where we needed it to be, so from a discipline point of view in the 22 we need to be better.

"But we want to be excited about next week because these are the weeks you dream of.

"You spend a lot of time on the side of the mountain, you want to enjoy it when you're near the top as well."