Andy Friend admits Connacht's achievement of reaching the BTK United Rugby Championship play-offs is especially pleasing following their winless start to the campaign.
With the Sportsground undergoing renovations to install a 4G pitch, the Westerners travelled to Belfast, Cape Town and Pretoria in their first three games and returned without so much as single bonus point to their name.
They got up and running upon their seasonal bow in Galway with a win over Munster and mixed good and bad until the New Year, where they have put together six league victories in a row – their best run since the 2015/16 season when they won the Pro12.
Saturday evening's 38-19 win over Cardiff secured a play-off place, while they need to beat Glasgow next weekend to secure a Champions Cup spot for next season.
"We set out every year to reach the play-offs," the Australian, who will leave at the end of the season, told reporters after the match.
"We always say we want to be contenders, we want to be in contending positions to be in the knock-out stages.
"We did it for Europe. We'd love to have gone another to get to the quarter-finals but we didn’t.
"We’re definitely in it? Brilliant. But now we’ve got to go again because you want to try and climb that ladder as high as you can.
"Respectfully, you don’t want to be finishing eighth, you don’t want to go up to bloody Dublin and play those blokes [table-topper Leinster]. You don’t.
"So we don’t want to finish there, we want to finish somewhere else. Where that is, that will probably be determined by probably us and others.
"But, again, you get to this stage of the season and you want to keep winning, so that’s our job to try and do next week."
Glasgow are practically locked in fourth place and also have a Challenge Cup semi-final to prepare for but Friend said the emphasis is on his side to take care of business.
"It’s up to us," said Friend, who also revealed that Jarrad Butler suffered a hamstring injury in the first half.
"I thought Pete (Wilkins, head coach) spoke really well to the team before this game.
"He said, 'At the end of this game we could be as high as fifth and we could be as low as eighth. It’s up to us.’
"And he’s right, it is up to us, and it will continue to be up to us next week. So, our destiny is in our own hands.
"But what a great spot to be in, and after the start I didn’t stop believing.
"It's been a really special five years, it's an amazing province..."
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) April 15, 2023
Connacht head coach Andy Friend speaks to #RTERugby after they secured a playoff sport in his final home game in charge. pic.twitter.com/tQzEknRXYd
"I thought our opening game against Ulster was really disappointing, but if I’m honest with you we buggered up our lead-in to that. It wasn’t really our doing either.
"We wanted another (warm-up) game but we couldn’t get another game, so I’ve got to wear that.
"So, the Ulster one wasn’t good. Against the Stormers we were in the game, then we get a red card. That hurt us, that really hurt us, and then that looks like they’ve come over the top.
"The Bulls, we were just shell-shocked mate. They got off to a great start but I still felt like we did some good things there, but then we come back in a must-win game against Munster and we beat them.
"Then we went toe-to-toe with Leinster and we didn’t win it, but we went toe-to-toe with Leinster, and then we had two wins to finish that against the Scarlets and the Ospreys.
"So, actually at the end of that block, I felt: ‘Righto, we’ll dust ourselves off, we’ll be okay.' And we knew we just had to keep building the game and we made some major adjustments after those first eight games.
"We made some major adjustments to our programme, which is a real credit to the coaching staff and the players that they we were able to do that.
"You’ve got to be coming good at the right end of the season, and I think that’s what we’re doing at the minute, which is good."
