THE players were very disappointed after the defeat at Waterloo and their performance was short of the standard we've become used to.

To keep on winning at this level you've got to work hard, it doesn't just come as a matter of course and we've got to reduce the number of turnovers and errors.

As we saw on Saturday we've not been playing so well, but in other games we were getting away with it.

We've had a fantastic run, and setting the record for the most consecutive wins was tremendous, but it had to come to an end at some stage.

But what happened is behind us and we've now got to learn from it and become stronger.

Everyone has trained very, very hard this week and I can't fault their commitment.

They've got a lot of pride and you can't go through life winning everything no matter how hard you work.

Losing is not the end of the world and as I have said all along ,we wanted to finish in the top four.

We're still going for promotion and if we play to our potential it's something we can achieve.

It's now up to us to get things right when Exeter visit Sixways on Saturday.

We had them watched last week and they've got a big, physical pack and beat Moseley quite comfortably.

Our second team is littered with talented young players and for the second week in a row they played some smashing rugby to beat quality opposition.

They'll play after the firsts again on Saturday, it's an idea we fell upon at Wakefield and it's working well to make sure everyone gets a game.

Unfortunately we've had bad luck with injuries and had three top choice wingers out on Saturday.

We're only a month into the season and already we've had Paul Holford, James Lofthouse, Chris Scott, Ben Harvey, Rob Myler, and Simon Morris sidelined but we feel we've got a big enough squad to cope.

On the international front I was pleased to see Lawrence Dallaglio chosen as the England captain up to next year's World Cup.

I am a big fan of Lawrence and know him well from the England Sevens squad of 1993 and my three and a half years time spent with the full England international set-up.

He's very competitive, highly skilled and would have been my number one choice.

Thursday, October 8.