I AM very pleased to be involved with England this week but it's the worst possible time to be away from the lads.

After two defeats on the bounce, I desperately want to be there with the boys. That's what our team is based on at Worcester.

But it's out of my hands and they are certainly putting us through our paces with England. We are staying at the Conference Centre in Loughborough and it's a fantastic facility. We're doing two sessions a day and the training is pretty full-on.

There's always quite a lot of banter between the players at these get-togethers. Rugby is a small world and there are only 12 clubs in the Premiership so you pretty much know everybody. You can't help but have friends.

But all that sort of stuff stops when you take the field on a Saturday.

We are very disappointed with what happened against Northampton Saints in the Powergen Cup. Without a doubt, Saints were more up for it than we were and that is a great shame.

They haven't had the start to the season they wanted but they came at us hard.

We had a lot of success in the first four games and the Cup was not something we were going to let ourselves be distracted by at that time.

The result was disappointing but, given Leicester's result against Dragons, the group is still open -- provided we get a result on Saturday.

Welford Road is a very difficult place to go and win. Very few teams go there and come back with a victory.

Last year we sent a weakened side down there and they beat us easily. What makes them so good is that they are mentally very strong and you don't catch them off guard very often.

The injury situation is not very good at the moment. It's going to happen at some point in the season. Games are getting harder every year and we can feel it happening again this year.

The intensity has gone up and so injuries get worse. We had a pretty bad weekend on all counts.

Andre van Niekerk will be hard to replace. He's started the season really well and offers something quite special.

It's a nasty injury. I've had the same thing myself and you don't wish something like that on anybody.

But he's certainly a character and he's also a pretty quick healer.

It is now a big opportunity for Chris Fortey, who is a class hooker in his own right. There's no doubt he has got the ability. He showed that when he was at Gloucester.

The Leicester game on Saturday will be a delicate balance between doing enough to win the match and not picking up two or three injuries.

We return to the Guinness Premiership the following week against Leeds and that is obviously going to be a big week for us. We need as many people as possible to be fit and healthy for that game.