IN the first-half of our LV= Cup game against Saracens, we were still in the zone of attacking rugby that we have looked to play during the last few weeks of cup matches and we let our defence slip.

We tightened that up for the second-half and it was a lot better — we could have gone on to get the result, but it didn’t help that the pitch is so terrible at the moment.

I’m not having a pop at the groundstaff because it has been really difficult with all the snow and heavy rain we’ve had recently.

It looks like our chef Tracey Priddey has been using the pitch to plant potatoes and carrots!

Hopefully, now the pitch will have a rest for a couple of weeks, it should have chance to recover before our next home game.

The boys are crying out for a decent surface to play on at the moment.

We enjoyed playing on the pitch at the Madejski Stadium the other day and that is in really good condition despite having London Irish and Reading Football Club playing on it.

When I was at Sale Sharks we used to ground-share with Stockport County too and, although the pitch was often very sandy, it was always playable.

As I wasn’t in the Worcester squad to play Saracens, I went to Twickenham for England’s Six Nations win over Scotland.

It was a great day out and we were there early enough that we could have a beer in the car park and watch some of the Wales-Ireland game too.

The atmosphere inside Twickenham was outstanding and the whole build-up to the match was great, we really enjoyed it.

The style the young England lads are playing at the moment is brilliant — Stuart Lancaster has a really young side and that is what we want to see.

England fans have been waiting for that for years and a lot of the players now are around 23 or 24 years old and the side puts a lot of focus on attack.

The way Ireland played in Wales was impressive, but England can certainly win in Dublin this weekend, but whether they have enough experience in the side, I’m not so sure.

However, if England go there and play the same fearless rugby they did against Scotland on Saturday, they can win and it should be a great game.

We head to Bath this weekend and The Rec is not a place Worcester have done well at in recent years — in fact, at the moment we don’t do well at any away grounds.

That is something we have spoken about this week, everyone is aware of our poor away record and we are really keen to break that cycle.

There are some big motivations for us this weekend — we are back into Aviva Premiership action and we owe Bath one for the way they snatched victory from the final kick of our match at Sixways on the opening day of the season.