THIS week I’ve had an operation to remove an edmea from my leg which wasn’t dissipating — basically I suffered a torn muscle and had to have the excess fluid removed.

It’s like a dead leg, but it has been really painful and the muscle injury has prevented me from putting any pressure on the leg.

I will be on crutches for the next four or five days before I can start my recovery — there isn’t really a time-scale on it yet, but it will be weeks rather than months.

However, there is no chance I’ll be ready for the Leicester game at Sixways on September 20.

I can’t say how frustrating it is to get this injury — especially so early in the season.

I have taken a big step backwards as I will have to build my fitness up again, but it is just one of those things and you have to accept it.

Playing in the back row is a high-impact area where there is a lot of tackling and hitting rucks. If you play there, you will get injuries from time to time.

Looking at our game with Northampton on the opening weekend of the season, it was very disappointing for us to begin like that and so frustrating because we know what we are capable of.

We didn’t execute our skills properly and there were four or five little problems which became one big problem, but we know we can put things right quickly.

It was a great opportunity missed and all of the lads are hurting.

We struggled on the floor at the break-down and in the line-out. We have worked incredibly hard at the line-out in pre-season and it was looking good in our warm-up matches.

We know we can take teams apart in that area when we get it right.

It was not so much the new laws where we struggled. We were penalised a lot at the break-down, but I’m not sure that the referee was too consistent there. The laws are new to the players and the referees and we are both learning still.

However, we can put everything right this weekend when we travel to Wasps. Like us, they will be looking to bounce back from an opening defeat and it will be a really intense game.

They are capable of imposing themselves on games and have a very powerful squad, but we know that we can beat anyone in this league.

We’ve seen a lot of Matthew Jones in training and he has looked like a class player. He has got a great all-round game, kicks well from the floor and out of hand and has great vision.

We saw how confident he is when he tried a penalty from his own half against Northampton. If he can reach from that range, then he might as well have a go.

In general, the backs looked dangerous when they did get the ball, but they didn’t see enough of it.

Greg Rawlinson stood in as captain for me on Sunday and he sets a great example with his attitude and commitment.

Everyone at the club respects him and I am sure he will lead the side brilliantly while I am sidelined.