There is no doubt that we played much better than the previous week against Castres, although Munster provide you with a completely different challenge to that of the French side. On the positive front, we looked after the ball well, won the collisions by turning over Munster a lot in the tackle areas and played in the right areas of the field. Disappointingly, we struggled to win our own lineout, admittedly against one of the best in the Northern Hemisphere, but that is something that can be addressed on the practice field and in front of the video.

With no game this weekend, the players have had four days off before regrouping on Friday at Roehampton for a full day of rugby training. We went into last weekend's game with a number of players who had not trained during the week due to illness and coupled with the number of injuries we have, it has meant that our medical department have been very busy since the weekend.

Maurice Fitz Gerald has seen a number of specialists with regards to his neck injury and we are awaiting the results on the various tests he has undertaken. As you will know, Geo Cronje is also seeing our knee consultant this week and we will be hoping to have some news on his knee injury very soon.

Of the other players, Tani Fuga, Ace Tiatia, James Hayter, Mike Worsley and Andre Vos have all been in and out of the treatment room to ensure that we get them back on the pitch as soon as possible. One new injury that materialised from last weekend is Andy Dunne, who came off in the second half. Andy has a broken bone in his foot and could be out of action for up to eight weeks.

The good news is that Jim Evans, who has been out since pre-season due to a shoulder injury, will make his comeback for the Second XV on Monday evening (24th January) when he will start against London Wasps in the Zurich A League at the Aldershot Stadium, kick-off 7.30pm.

You will have read that we have brought in scrum half Dave Von Hoesslin for the rest of this season. With Simon Keogh playing virtually every game on the wing due to injuries to George Harder and Ugo Monye, we felt that we were exposed in this position should Steve So'oialo suffer an injury and Dave, who has played five times for South Africa, is the ideal person to bring in to the squad.

Looking forward, we all know the challenge that we face. The bottom of the table has six teams all battling to avoid finishing in 12th position and we are one of them. There are nine Zurich Premiership games left and we start this run-in away at Welford Road on 29th January against league leaders Leicester Tigers.

As I said last week, hard work, self belief and determination will see us through.