THE mood in the Sixways camp has been positive despite losing to Bristol who beat us twice during the season and deserved to finish top of the Championship.

It was quite an interesting game against Andy Robinson’s side. We played very well until 55 to 60 minutes until we picked up two yellow cards due to ill-discipline.

It was good to get tested at a higher level and it was lovely to play in front of a Sixways crowd in full voice. The fans turned out in force and it was good fun for us. That’s the way we want Sixways to be every week. Hopefully, we will see the fans again at the second leg of the semi-final on May 8.

We had Max Stelling and Chris Pennell injured very early on so we had two players out of position but it was a good learning lesson. It was definitely a blow to lose them because they are two high-quality players. Chris is an England player, while Max has a bright future.

The positive thing is we have been swapping around our squad throughout the season and it makes no difference if there are a few changes. The boys who slot in know they need to perform. There is no concern in losing Chris and Max but it’s never nice to lose fine players.

If you look back at the game in detail, the referees covered about two miles more than they would normally do in a match. There was high intensity and more collisions out on the field and the ball was in play a lot more than usual. It was the equivalent of a Premiership game.

I thought the yellow card which Cooper Vuna received was a bit harsh but it was a decision we had to accept. I haven’t seen Jonathan Thomas’ incident but the cards were down to our ill-discipline.

I think there were some really good things we did against Bristol. We didn’t have a lot of ball in the second-half and only a few attacking line-outs.

Ryan Lamb had one of his best games. He was calm, made good decisions and his kicking game went very well. It was a good performance from him.

We now turn our attention to Saturday’s trip to London Scottish, who are a very good side and like to maul. They tend to score a lot of tries through their captain Mark Bright.

It’s a different challenge for us and we need to give them full respect. They finished third for a reason and it’s going to be a tough game.

I have played in back-to-back matches in Europe but I have never played in a match where an aggregate score over two legs defines the result.We have to play our brand of rugby and, if we do that, we should be OK.