Northampton Saints Number 8 Phil Dowson has admitted he is looking forward to the start of the 2011/12 season, so he can finally put his Heineken Cup final heartbreak behind him.
Leinster overturned a 16-point half-time deficit at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to deny the Saints the top European honours in May and Dowson is now fully focused on the campaign ahead and is looking forward to getting game time under his belt.
"I'm still disappointed but at the same time, things like that happen in sport," he told the Northampton Chronicle.
"There's two ways you can react to it. You can walk away or you can just get back in and more than anything, the squad needs a game.
"The sooner we get a big, competitive game under our belt the better. Move on and then it's a new season, everything starts blank. No one's got any Premiership points, no one's got any Heineken points and let's go at it again."
The 2010/11 finalists begin their European campaign next season with a trip to double European Champions Munster in Round One, before welcoming the Scarlets to Franklin's Gardens the following weekend.