'It was enough' - Dowson reflects on Saints' victory against Scarlets
Phil Dowson admitted Saints' performance against Scarlets on Sunday afternoon wasn't exactly vintage.
But he was pleased that the black, green and gold managed to do enough to book a home round of 16 tie in the Investec Champions Cup.
Saints secured a bonus-point 43-28 win as they concluded their pool-stage campaign at a sold-out cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens.
They were made to battle until the end by a spirited Scarlets side, but ultimately it was job done for Saints, who finished the pool stages as fifth seeds.
That means they can now look forward to a home round of 16 tie on the first weekend of April.
And when asked about the showing against the Scarlets, in which Edoardo Todaro notched a first-half hat-trick, Dowson said: "It was enough. I don't think it was vintage.
"We've got to give credit to the Scarlets and how well they played, how they came and got stuck into us.
"Credit to the scrum because it gave us a real foothold in the game after last week, and the effort in that was outstanding.
"It's always important and the way we reviewed that, the way we went after it and trained during the week was excellent.
"Credit to Jaco Pienaar in terms of putting that together."
Dowson added: "We did enough, and we'll look at that as a performance and how we went into that game to make sure we're hopefully better for it next time.
"With the way the Scarlets have been playing recently, it (their performance at the Gardens) was no surprise because they've always scored a lot of points.
"I was actually really impressed with their defence because we actually put quite a lot of pressure on them and they dealt with it.
"We could have done with looking after the ball a bit more or running our plays a bit slicker, but at the same time they put enough pressure on us to cause errors.
"It was one of those days where we couldn't quite get it right, but we managed to get a result.
"Performance is the most important thing, and we always go after the performance, but it's given us enough to get a home round of 16.
"Obviously we want to be top of the group and we want to win everything, but at the same time to be seeded fifth out of all those teams in the tournament is credit to this group.
"There's nothing that gives us the right to have home fixtures and be top of every group so at some point we have to do it the hard way and that'll start with the round of 16."