91Èȱ¬

Northampton Saints forwards coach Phil Dowson insists there is no need for "doom and gloom" despite losing all three Premiership games in February.

The winless run has left Saints eight points outside of the top four with eight games left to try and secure an end-of-season play-off place.

Dowson will step up to the director of rugby role next season.

"You're going to have ups and downs and bumps in the road," the 40-year-old told 91Èȱ¬ Radio Northampton.

"Against Leicester we didn't really give ourselves a chance to win the game, whereas against Sale we should have won the game or could have won the game or would have won the game if, and likewise against the (Exeter) Chiefs.

"We've been in the last two games because a lot of the fundamentals were solid, the scrum was good at the weekend, the set-piece, there's a lot of things that are working quite well and we've scored plenty of points but there are times when we've let ourselves down with regards to consistency and finishing games.

"When you're 11 points up with 16 minutes on the clock, you should be winning those games, so we're in a bit of a rut but it's not all doom and gloom, there's lots of positive things - but we have to be better in order to win those games when the league is so competitive."

Northampton are on the road on Saturday with a game against sixth-placed Gloucester, having buoyed their fans with this week's signing of Ethan Waller and Australia lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto for next season.

They are looking to complete a double at Kingsholm, having started the campaign with a 34-20 win over the Cherry and Whites in September.

"We have to be better at finishing games, it was one of our focuses at the end of last year because we haven't been good enough in the last 10 minutes of games," Dowson added.

"In the last couple of weeks it's reared its head again. so we need to batten down the hatches and make sure we get better."