THUMPING Saracens victory will not be enough to carry Gloucester through Saturday's brutal battle at Exeter, believes boss Nigel Davies.
Gloucester hit back to form in subduing Premiership leaders Saracens 28-23 at Kingsholm on April 20.
The Cherry and Whites' play-off hopes hit the buffers with a woeful 32-9 slump at Sale Sharks a week earlier.
Rugby director Davies was delighted with his side's response against Saracens, admitting it brought the feel-good factor straight back to Kingsholm.
But he has warned his squad they cannot expect that momentum to guide them past Exeter Chiefs on its own at Sandy Park on Saturday (kick-off 2.30pm).
The former Wales centre explained: "We've got to be comfortable going away from home and putting in big performances.
"We've done it for the large part, but quite clearly Sale was obviously disappointing.
"But we have been solid away from home for the most part and we've got to build on that.
"I'd expect us to be up there on the back of the Saracens performance, and very, very competitive down at Exeter.
"But we cannot just think that a performance will take care of itself, we've got to drive and control our approach and how that motivates us.
"We'll have to be very mindful of the Sale defeat. We'll use it positively to get the performance levels back to where they need to be.
"We'll have to get our focus exactly right for this game against Exeter."
After outrunning Harlequins and outmuscling Saracens at Kingsholm, Davies now wants Gloucester to beat the Chiefs at their own game on the road.
Rob Baxter's group of grinders know how to hog possession and squeeze the life out of teams.
And Davies will tell his players that ball retention will be more vital than ever in Devon this weekend.
Hailing Gloucester's qualification for next season's Heineken Cup, he continued: "We played Harlequins at their own game and beat them, and then we managed to do the same thing to Saracens.
"Controlling the game is vital. We need to keep building more control into our game, and that's what we'll keep battling to do.
"One thing Saracens have got is belief in themselves, and they've built that over a number of years.
"That was the challenge for us going up against them, the boys were at a low ebb after the Sale match and didn't maybe believe in themselves enough.
"But we've built that belief this year pretty well, but we've still got a long way to go.
"We've signed off at Kingsholm positively but nobody's going to rest on their laurels, there's a lot of work to do.
"This will drive us hopefully to be a lot better next year than this.
"This group of players deserve a lot of credit for getting Gloucester back into the top tier of European rugby.
"And now we want to close off the season with another positive note."
