ANYTHING less than winning the European Challenge Cup this year has to be seen as a failure after what we did last season, but we are taking it one step at a time.

The competition is an important one for us on a number of levels. Firstly, it helps to develop our squad.

There are a number of players who are starting to prove themselves and it is a great testing ground for them.

Secondly, it is probably a step down from the Guinness Premiership so it allows us to hone and test our play so we can re-assert ourselves when the league games return having ironed out a number of faults.

Thirdly, there is Heinken Cup qualification at the end of it and we all know how close we came to that last year.

We’ve got good and bad memories from Bucuresti last year — it is a lovely place, but the weather was appalling. If it is wet, damp and windy again, like last year, that will be a great leveller but, if it’s not, we’ve got all the tools to hurt them.

It is a matter of staying consistent, motivated and producing the same level of intensity that we have been doing. It is a potential banana skin, so it is very important we go there and get the win on Sunday.

I’m hopeful that I will be fit for the Ospreys game next weekend — things are going really well with my recovery and I’ve just got to get myself conditioned again.

The quad is pretty much 100 per cent and it is just everything around it because of the type of lay-off I’ve had. I need to get the muscle wastage built back up before I can play again.

I am really looking forward to playing as it was incredibly frustrating. I’m not looking at that, though, I just want to get on with things. It will be a tough couple of weeks training for me now to get back to the sort of fitness I need to be at, but the end is in sight.

I know that if I am playing well, I’ll get my place back in the side. If I play the sort of rugby I am capable of, it is not a matter of selection, it is a matter of me concentrating on what I can do and how well I can do it and I am certain that will be enough.

I always work closely with the other flankers — we work, train and communicate toget-her every day. We’ve got a good system here and one thing that is very clear is that we are all very pro-active about helping each other improve.

Greg Rawlinson and Chris Latham are good men and they are both great leaders and that is part of the reason why we are moving forward as a squad.

We’ve got a number of people that can lead and that is incredibly important. Greg and Chris are both the right sort of people and they command respect.

It is fantastic that Sixways has been chosen to host the England Under 20 games in the Six Nations, but I’m not surprised.

You’ve only got to look around the place to see it is a fantastic arena for rugby.

You are guaranteed a good following, because we get that every week from the city, and it doesn’t surprise me that we have been picked.

In fact, I am more surprised it doesn’t happen more often.