Monday 24th November 

Today is the start of a very tough week for us, we are now in a position in the league where we have to scrap for every point available to us and that starts this Friday at home to Wasps.

Having been feeling pretty low all weekend after last week's result, I woke up this morning and made a point of putting it to the back of my mind and focussing on this week. Straight out of bed and downstairs to cook my breakfast - a packet of chicken. Every morning when I cook the stuff I ask myself why I don't cook i the night before as there is not much worse than the smell as soon as you get up.

Positivity at training was my aim so as soon as we started there was a great deal of positive chat and upbeat comments flying around amongst the lads. We spent time looking at what we are going to do against Wasps in the game this week. Wasps pose different problems in terms of how they defend and this is what we addressed this morning but we have played against them loads of times before and knew what was coming so things went well. 

It's very tough on a week following a loss as confidence is low but you have to out things to the back of your mind and get on with it. After training I did my personal extras working on my tackle technique and then headed home for lunch. I only love 10 minutes from the training ground so like to go home if I can as it gets you away from rugby for a couple of hours and helps keep your mind fresh, allowing you to do other things in your life which I feel helps you on the pitch in my opinion.

This afternoon we had our 4 gym groups and worked on cardiovascular fitness and strength with Sparks our fitness trainer. Interval sessions on the cardio machines followed by a weights circuit and then some strongman training. The strongman training involved flipping big mats and piling them up and moving them about as fast as possible. It's great training for functional strength and helps loads. Only about 40 minutes of that and then the day was over with the chance to head home again and focus on other things that interest me.

 Tuesday 25th November

Today's session started in the freezing cold focussing on the defensive side of our game. Alan Tait has come in this season and done some really good things with our defence and it is now much stronger in terms of the tries we leak than in years gone by. This season our discipline has let us down and cost us most of our points through penalties rather than anything else.

Small drills where individuals can focus on their own roles are followed by larger more generic drills where players can work together as units and this is where the real benefit comes from in the side.

After spending some valuable time on defence we split into forwards ad backs, forwards looking at their line-outs whilst the backs spent time handling and practicing our running lines in certain plays. This is only a short 20 minutes before we all join again and run through our attack again to make sure that is spot on before our Thursday team run.

We want to spend as short time as possible on our feet this week as we want a full tank of energy to take into the game against Wasps so we don't spend too long on our plays. We finish and the backs have a meeting with Alan Tait and the video analyst which helps highlight little areas where we can improve and better our performance on Friday.

This afternoon we don't have a scheduled session but I go into our local gym and work on things I feel I need to keep on top of to stay at the top of my game in terms of being physically ready to play. 29 is not old by any means but I am well aware that there are lots of youngsters now coming into the game. They are far bigger and faster than when I began playing so I have to try to keep on improving too or they play and I don't!! It's only 40 minutes or so before I have completed this session and then I head home.

Time to spend some time with the dogs and keep up to date with work commitments and then I am off to a dinner tonight which is for Alan Shearer which should be good. I am sat with a table of people I know and some I don't but that is one of the things I have come to enjoy as a player, getting the chance to go out and meet people and get some serious networking done!!!!

Thursday 27th November

The forwards met half and hour before the backs this morning so they could run through what they were going to do at the line-out tomorrow night. They will have been given a video from Stuart Grimes which will allow them to understand the problems that Wasps will throw at us and how we might look to get the better of them in this area.

After their meeting they walk straight into another one where the team is announced and our coach Steve Bates highlights a few more things we need to think about before we go and train for the last time prior to the game. 

A short warm up is followed by handling drills with Alan Tait and then we split into the team which is playing tomorrow night with the rest of the squad working with Taity to try and put together plays which Wasps do so we can practice our defence. We work at our defence for about half and hour and then swap round so we can have a look at what we want to do against them. 

It is only a shirt session as we don't want to take too much out of the legs so we have a full tank tomorrow night. It has only been a short week and we have not had long to prepare but we are looking forward to the game which provides us with a great opportunity to get a win under our belts and start building our confidence again. Fingers crossed.......