WE made a quick start against Nottingham at the weekend but I felt the injury to Mike Williams knocked us back a bit and played into their hands.

We eventually managed to get back to the high-tempo that suits the way we play and showed what we can do in the last 10 minutes of the first-half and in the final 20 minutes of the second- half. Our fitness levels came through in the latter stages and we scored some really well-worked tries.

It helped that we were playing against 14 men and, luckily, I was in the right place at the right time and man - aged to get my hands on the ball plenty of times towards the end. I would love to have scored a try and I saw the line at one point, but Max Stelling was in a better position and I passed to him.

I thought we had a superb day at the line-out and, I don’t know what the statistics showed, but we won all our ball and disrupted a lot of their ball.

I found some of the decisions by the match officials a bit frustrating at times — but that is something a player is not able to control and I need to focus on the things that I can change.

We have had a really good week’s training but we need to look at our tackle comple - tion rate because that was one of the disappointing aspects from the game.

We travel to Rotherham this weekend. I have not been there before but Charlie Mul - chrone and Dan Sanderson have played for them. They have given us a few insights on what we can expect and Rotherham is definitely a club that gives a lot of young players an opportunity. They are a good breeding ground and have produced plenty of players for Premiership clubs.

It is great to see our Cavaliers playing some exceptional rugby and they put in an outstanding performance on Monday night to beat Northampton Wanderers 22-16.

The heartbeat of any club is the second team and it’s great players are staking their claim for the first team and putting plenty of pres - sure on those already in the first XV.

The crowd was almost 1,000 for that match and, hopefully, the Cavaliers can continue to win and pick up the club’s first piece of silverware for the season.

It’s a nice feeling being the captain and with that comes great responsibility. But I am lucky enough to have five other players as part of our senior management.

By being named captain I have the armband, but I have guys to fall back on and help me. Jonathan Thomas. An - dries Pretorius, James Percival, Alex Grove and Chris Pennell and I are all part of the senior management