Afternoon:
9°c
Tomorrow's Heineken Cup match against Leinster is one of the biggest challenges London Irish have faced. To keep our hopes of making the quarter-finals alive, we must beat the defending champions and gain a bonus point by scoring four tries.
Leinster are a class outfit, have great players and a huge amount of experience but this is no "Mission Impossible" and I remember Munster beating Gloucester in similar circumstances and eventually winning the trophy.
We are all bitterly disappointed we lost against the Scarlets last week. Having put the club into a great position, we shot ourselves in the foot by not getting the balance right in attack.
Our defence was also not up to standard and we must get that right from the start against Leinster because I expect the first five or 10 minutes of the game to be pretty ferocious. How we fare then could set the tone for our entire performance in front of what will be a big crowd at Twickenham.
We tried to play too much rugby at Scarlets and wasted a host of try-scoring opportunities. It's vital we are more clinical tomorrow because we are up against a Leinster defence, who are very streetwise and will put us under real pressure.
Despite that, we have to stay true to the ethos of the club and as long as we get the balance right between kicking for position and moving the ball in hand then we will create chances to score tries.
It took a couple of days to get the Scarlets performance out of our systems and I don't believe there will be a hangover from that match tomorrow as the guys are totally focused on Leinster and know we only have ourselves to blame for being in this position.
All credit to the club for taking the game to Twickenham, which will provide a marvellous stage for what will be a massive contest.
Of course, we would love to be on the big stage again for a semi-final or final and if we each do our jobs then we can progress.
After a couple of weeks without a game, Leinster looked a bit rusty when they defeated Brive last week but, as the holders, they will be aiming to clinch a home quarter-final tie by doing a professional job tomorrow.
We paid the price for not taking the points at Scarlets and now we have an opportunity to put that right just six days later.
We have to believe that anything is possible and bounce back with a performance to be proud of.
No one at the club is under any illusions about the challenge we face but that's why we play the game and I have every faith in the players' ability to rise to the occasion.
