It was, however, quite pleasing for me to see our very own David Strettle emerge as one of England's only plus points from the day. David has been performing exceptionally well week in, week out for us and it was very pleasing when Brian called him up to the squad in the wake of Jason Robinson's injury last week. That culminated in his first start for his country and he possibly ended up being England's best player on the day, while celebrating a debut international try.

It's always pleasing when one of your club players get a deserved call-up for their country; it was the same when Nick Easter got the nod for the game against Italy. Both have done themselves proud and must have great chances of now being selected for the World Cup squad later in the year.

There are, however, a number of other players at the club who deserve a look. If it's experience Brian needs, then he could do a lot worse than Andy Gomarsall at scrum half. He was superb in our 15-8 victory over Bristol on Saturday and I can see no reason why he couldn't slot back into the international reckoning if things weren't working at half back. Then there's Mike Brown, who's a specialist full back with a great left peg. He's had an excellent season for us as well.

Saturday's victory was a very pleasing one against a Bristol side who could have returned to the top of the Premiership table with a win. With Bristol boasting the best defensive record in the country, this was always going to be difficult and low scoring, but fortunately we stuck to our guns and ground out a result.

Sometimes you need good old-fashioned doggedness and hard graft to grind out a result and it was pleasing that we could do that and come out on top against a very good side. You don't get penalties for nothing and Adrian Jarvis did his job in despatching them for a 15-point personal haul.

This victory gives us plenty of confidence for a difficult run of games ahead, most notably away at Leicester this Saturday (3rd March). My old side will be in determined mood after losing their first home league match in three years against Northampton on Saturday and we are under no illusions about the task that awaits us.

That said, we are on a nice little run at the moment and the Tigers will know that they're in for a game.

Copy courtesy of City AM.