Saturday's win against Scarlets will count for nothing if Connacht don't "back it up" against the Stormers this weekend, according to head coach Andy Friend.
The province ended their run of four successive defeats on Saturday night when they defeated the Scarlets 29-23, climbing back up to eighth place in the table.
Defeats to Glasgow and Ulster had seen Connacht slip back to 10th in recent weeks, but Saturday's win, as well as defeats for their rivals has swung the door back open tor Andy Friend's side.
The result lifts them back up to seventh place in the URC table, which as things stand keeps them in the mix for Champions Cup qualification.
The 2016 champions will hope to build some further momentum this Saturday when they welcome the Stormers to the Sportsground for their rescheduled Round 10 fixture, and Friend says it's vital they pick up where they left off in Llanelli.
"It's really important, this is the beauty of the competition.
"Someone asked me the other day, 'your season looks like it’s dwindling out?’ It’s not, because we still had eight games to go and a lot of the teams we’re playing are either ahead of us or around us. There’s still a lot that can happen. All we can control is what we do on Saturday.
"It’s really important we back that up now, really important that we don’t leave it.
"It was a good performance and a courageous performance against a good Scarlets side but if we leave it there it won’t count for much.
"We're very aware coming into this block of games, my message was that we had eight games left and we need to win six of them to put us in a position to try and be playing Champions Cup next season.
"When we finished that game on Saturday night I went to shake Jarrad Butler’s hand and the first thing he said was, 'we now need five from seven’.
"Everyone is very clear on the task we have given ourselves and we can hopefully pick those games off one by one."
While Connacht will be without both Jack Carty and Dave Heffernan who have returned to Irish camp, they are expected to welcome back Conor Oliver (below), Oisin Dowling and Denis Buckley whop all sat out their first ever win at Parc Y Scarlets.
After a poor start to the season the Stormers have shot up the table, and a four-game unbeaten run has seen them move up to eighth place in the table, one point behind Connacht but with two games in hand.
Friend says the key will be to keep the big South African forwards moving, which worked excellently in their Round 2 win against the Bulls in Galway.
"I think the blueprint is not too dissimilar to the Bulls, where we know we're up against a very physical side, so we know we have to front up physically.
"I think more so than against the Bulls, they have a lot of attacking threats in the back field, so our kicking game needs to be spot on. When we played the Bulls we made the most of our opportunities where we executed it, if we can do that we’ll put ourselves in a very good position to win. If we don’t they have enough firepower to really hurt us.
"I think one of the things we focused on is our ability to play fast. I know the second game of the season, that had a positive impact against a team like the Bulls.
"We're now 11 games into that so teams will watch what we’re doing. They’ve cottoned on a bit to some of our stuff so we need to continue to evolve."
