Gloucester Rugby were given a stark wake-up call by London Irish - and Director of Rugby Nigel Davies expects his players to bounce back against Bordeaux-Begles at Stade André Moga in their Round 5 contest on Friday night.
The 18-12 home Premiership defeat at the hands of a club they had beaten in both their back-to-back European encounters means the French club could face a backlash from the club who have a seven-point cushion at the top of Pool 1 but have a home quarter-final in their sights.
"We've got an opportunity to put ourselves into the quarter-finals of this competition, and that's one we need to take," said Davies.
"It's important that we respond after Saturday, and the best way to do that is to go over to France, put in a good performance and get a good win.
"That won't be easy, but we certainly need to show a reaction, and the players know that too. It's a big focus, absolutely. We're in with a good shout of a quarter-final place as we have won four games and you don't want to lose that momentum.
"We want to get back winning again as well and this is an opportunity to do that. We are in this as a group and we got it wrong. We don't think that's acceptable.
"The disappointing thing against London Irish was that we didn't turn up emotionally. When you couple that with the error count in our game, those are the reasons why we failed.
"We're still very much a work in progress and we're not good enough yet to slip off the hard work, the intensity and the accuracy that we've brought to other games.
"But you do lose games in rugby and the important thing is how you deal with that, how you manage it and how you come back from it."
