Dowson: Saints focused on performance rather than points against Gloucester

The black, green and gold know that a bonus-point win would ensure they will have a home play-off semi-final in the Gallagher Premiership this season.

Saints are currently top of the league standings, but they go into the clash with Gloucester on the back of a league loss to Harlequins and an agonising Investec Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Leinster last weekend.

And Dowson insists his side must concentrate on doing all aspects of their game well this week rather than worrying about collecting a maximum points haul.

"It's nice to have that target in mind but we're not worrying too much about the five points," the Saints boss said.

"We're thinking about our performance and we know if we get our set piece right, our kick strategy right and hustle right and we get our attacking shape right, we'll be in a good place.

"But we've got to make sure those building blocks are in place and if we have that, hopefully we can get what we need."

Saints had been hoping to make it to the May 25 Champions Cup final at Tottenham Hostpur Stadium, but a nervous showing during the first half at Croke Park came back to bite them.

They managed to close the gap to three points late on against Leinster, but the Irish side just about held on to set up a showpiece against Toulouse.

And now Saints will be eager to move on quickly as they place all of their eggs in the Premiership basket.

Dowson said: "We've only got one competition we're still in and that's the Premiership so we've got to put all our focus on that, learn our lessons from Croke Park and make sure our energy is focused on putting a good performance in against Gloucester.

"Obviously it was a long weekend of travel, a very tough game with a lot of collisions in there and emotionally you're on that big roller coaster of being so close and yet so far, so we're mindful of that.

"We took Monday off and we've made sure we've got everything out of Tuesday we needed to and then we've been slowly ramping up this week for our last home game of the regular season."

While Saints were unable to make it into a European final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Gloucester did succeed.

The Cherry and Whites will face the Sharks in the Challenge Cup showpiece on May 24.

But they are unable to move from ninth in the Premiership in the final two games of the Premiership season.

"We know that George Skivington has a group there that is emotionally invested in what they're trying to do," Dowson said.

"They're trying to get better and all of those young lads are very keen to make a name for themselves so they're a very dangerous team."