\n<\/p>\n
However, Dowson insists his side were not drawing motivation from that defeat.<\/p>\n
“I think you’re always going to be disappointed after a final and they have the privilege to celebrate however they want to,” he told BBC Radio Northampton.<\/p>\n
“I gave them kudos and credit in the post-match interview and I still would do that and we’ve got to make sure we prepare for this game and not re-analyse that one.”<\/p>\n
Northampton’s run to last year’s final was built on famous away-day victories, beating South African side Bulls at altitude in Pretoria in the pool stages before upsetting Leinster at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n
Bordeaux Begles have won seven of their eight home games this season, and start the game as favourites with the bookmakers.<\/p>\n
However, Northampton back Tommy Freeman says his side want to modify their underdog mindset and a reputation for a style based mainly on running rugby.<\/p>\n
“I had a conversation earlier with Ollie, our sports psychologist about the perception we give or we’re giving,” the 24-year-old England international said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve always had the young card – we’ve got young players, promising players – and the narrative’s got to change. We are what we are and we’re physical.<\/p>\n
“You’ve seen that over the last few weeks, how physical the forwards are.<\/p>\n
“We get that underdog status probably a bit too much. We are trying to change the narrative so its’ ‘we’re the big dogs and this is what we’re going to do’.<\/p>\n
“We need to puff our chests out and rip in.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
However, Dowson insists his side were not drawing motivation from that defeat. “I think you’re always going to be disappointed after a final and they have the privilege to celebrate however they want to,” he told BBC Radio Northampton. “I gave them kudos and credit in the post-match interview and I still would do that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}