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Danny Care is vowing to kick-start Harlequins' faltering season and prove he is England's leading scrum-half in Saturday's Guinness Premiership clash against Worcester at Sixways.
Care has featured in 11 of England's previous 13 tests and helped Quins earn a second-place finish in the top flight last season as well as an impressive double success over Stade Francais in the Heineken Cup.
With Harry Ellis on duty with the Lions in South Africa, Care was England's No9 for the home and away Tests with Argentina in the summer and is desperate to hold on to that jersey in the face of stiff competition, led by Paul Hodgson, of London Irish.
Care and Hodgson go head-to-head in the final Premiership game on 27 October before the November internationals against Australia, Argentina and New Zealand at Twickenham and with Quins struggling for form, their livewire scrum-half needs to impress.
His bid starts against Worcester but Care is only too aware of the missed try-scoring chances that undermined Quins' bid for Cup glory against Toulouse last weekend, when they let a 14-0 lead turn into a 23-19 loss.
Care, 22, said: "I hope to be there or thereabouts with England but it's team manager Martin Johnson's call. We have a number of good scrum-halves all pressing for the England spot.
"It's down to me to perform well every week. At Quins, we know the team isn't performing well. It's a collective responsibility and when we click, we're one of the best teams in Europe. We haven't had the best of starts - we lost against Toulouse and it was a knock in terms of our hopes for the Heineken Cup. Now our focus has switched to the Premiership."
With Quins enduring a troubled pre-season period in which the Bloodgate controversy saw the departure of Dean Richards as director of rugby, the spotlight was always going to be on them. Ian McGeechan, the Lions and former London Wasps supremo, is expected to be named as Richards' successor but an announcement could still two weeks away.
Care said: "John Kingston, the head coach, is giving us lots to work on and we will start moving in the right direction. Of course, you do miss a personality like Dean Richards but we will wait for the club to announce something."
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