It was a very disappointing way to finish our league programme at the Stoop for this season, but we must now turn our attention to London Wasps whom we face at Adams Park this Saturday (10th May 2003) afternoon.

Despite losing last weekend, we still have every chance of qualifying for the Wild Card play-off's and competing for a place in next seasons Heineken Cup. However, if we do not beat London Wasps then our participation in the play-off's will depend on the results at Bath, London Irish and Saracens.

London Wasps appear to be the form team in the Premiership at the present time. They have gone seven games unbeaten in the league and their victory away at Sale last weekend has all but guaranteed them a home semi-final in the Zurich Championships.

Having seen the welcome return to action last week of Bruce Starr and Laurent Gomez, this weekend should see another of our long-term injured returning to the 22-man squad. Pat Sanderson has worked very hard to recover from his shoulder injury and passed a fitness test yesterday and will start on the bench on Saturday.

On the downside, Ace Tiatia's shoulder has finally given way and he will now face an operation before returning to training to ensure he is ready for pre-season in August.

With Ace injured there will be another opportunity for James Hayter to compete for a first team place, having himself recovered from a long-term injury. James has put in some fine performances at Second XV level this season and he will be looking forward to the opportunity of performing in the Premiership.

Also in contention this weekend will be Ugo Monye, who has put in some solid performances for the Under 21's having recovered from the injury he collected while playing for the England Sevens team in Hong Kong.

As ever at this time of year, there appears to be an enormous amount of speculation with regards to players joining NEC Harlequins over the summer. We will hope to put out an announcement some time next week confirming those players that have signed for the club for the new season, as well as those that will be leaving us for pastures new.

We must now concentrate on the matter in hand; getting a result against London Wasps on Saturday afternoon and guaranteeing ourselves a place in the Wild Card play-offs.

As I said earlier, this will be far from easy as Wasps are a very fine outfit but we will, with your support, give it our best shot. Results have shown over recent weeks that any team in the Premiership is vulnerable to defeat if they do not perform at the highest level.

See you all on Saturday.