The Bears have never won a European competition and indeed their biggest success to date is arguably the British and Irish Cup in 2010-11.

“This is massive for us; we’ve worked hard for this,” Lam told the Bristol website. “Right from the beginning, to have some tangible silverware would be the start of a process of trying to do this year in, year out.”

Bristol will be aiming to forget last weekend’s Gallagher Premiership semi-final loss at Wasps when they travel to Aix-en-Provence to take on the three-time Heineken Cup winners at Stade Maurice-David on Friday.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed from the defeat to Wasps, missing an opportunity to get to a final, but to have this game after last week is huge,” Lam added.

“In a final, when you play the game and that full-time whistle goes, there’s a real reward that you get handed over to you – it’s something that all rugby players, coaches and management look forward to. There are enough of us who have experienced it to understand that there’s a lot of work that goes into it.

“So, this week has all been about taking our learnings from what happened last week and then channelling all of the excitement of a final into making sure we tick off a lot of boxes, and making sure we are ready to go and get the performance that will give us the best chance of winning that silverware.”

Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat Lam is hoping that Friday night’s European Rugby Challenge Cup final against RC Toulon will launch the English club on a trophy drive.