"All your home games are vital and by that token it is a very important game," said Evans.

"After last Sunday, which was a very strange day all round, we need to keep our recent home run going - we've won the last three. We certainly didn't play at all well in the first 26 minutes of last week's game at Saracens. None of the building blocks for a decent game were in place."

"Our defence was poor, very poor. Our lineout, which functioned very well in the last three-quarters of the game, didn't function in the first 20 minutes. Our scrum was not under pressure but we got rattled around the base all throughout the game. Our re-starts weren't very good and if you don't get those things right then you are going to struggle and we did to the tune of 26-3," he continued.

"But Wasps are one of those sides like Northampton and Sale that we need to rope in. We've got a game in hand, we're on 17 points and they are around the 22-24 point mark. That little group of clubs and with the bottom four playing each other this week, two will come up and two will languish but we need to hook ourselves onto that next group, that second tier."

"We had an opportunity to do that on Sunday and to get what was effectively an away draw, which it was although with time running out we were on a five pointer, which we didn't deserve and occasionally you get things that you don't deserve, and it would have been nice to have got them on Sunday."

"Five points would have hooked us up with that group already and a win this week will do the same, and that is our next aim, to get ourselves hooked up to that next group lying five, six and seven."

"We're averaging just over two points a game. People go by win and losses; I go by how many points you get and if you translate that across the season that gives you 46 points that usually puts you about seventh, although we are aiming higher than that."

"We've come through the first eight games with a lot of injuries, an awful lot of injuries, that we've tried not to make too much about at the time. I think if we can kick on now from that, which is what we failed to do last season when we reached a very similar point last year when we played eight won three drawn two and lost three and had a 50% record and lying sixth and then we went on an absolutely disastrous run of eight defeats. We were 3-2-3 and went 3-2-11 and no way do we want to do that again."

"We need to hook up to the next group which I think we are more than capable of doing, because we have battled well under quite difficult circumstances and we've looked at times pretty good, but also we've looked pretty average so you've got to believe, hope and expect that if we can get a relatively injury free run and get Paul Burke and Dan Luger back and Vossie in the side then we can be better and improve."

"Nicky Duncombe has only played three games and Woody has hardly played any. That's okay when you've only got one or two, but when you are dealing with six, seven or eight or more in a week. Look at Sale - they've lost three players and they can't buy a point."

"In the long-term I'm encouraged, as we've got a deeper squad. Luke Sherriff was absolutely outstanding on Tuesday night (Vs Cambridge University, 12/11/02), and there's a lot of players in the side - Karl Rudzki and Jim Evans - have both shown that they can perform at first team level."

"Even James Hayter got on the park on Tuesday, so we've got more people putting their hand up and saying that I'm worth a place and/or people saying that I might not be a first team player yet, but if you needed me to play the odd game and it was only me amongst all the other experienced players, I'm not going to let you down, so it has to be encouraging."