IT is massively important to have home advantage in the Championship semi-final —but it is strange to have so much hanging on just one game.

However, it will be a big advantage to us to be able to play the game at Sixways and it will be great if people turn out in numbers.

There will be a brilliant atmosphere and it would be nice to set the tone for a potential final in front of our own fans.

Ultimately, we have to win the game, which is all that matters, regardless of how we get the victory.

There is too much riding on a one-off semi-final for us to worry about playing great rugby — we will naturally play good rugby, but it will be a real dogfight.

We will face either Doncaster or Bedford in the semi-final depending on this weekend’s results.

The Knights have come into some good form recently and we know they can be tough to beat. They very nearly beat us at Sixways earlier in the season and they have a very physical pack and some fairly sharp backs.

We would be very wary of them because they will be full of confidence as they have done so well in the play-off group stages and shouldn’t be written off.

Bedford have probably lost a little bit of the momentum they had in the regular season but, in terms of attacking rugby, they can be a very dangerous side.

But, before we get into the semi-finals, we face Bristol at Sixways on Saturday in our final pool ‘A’ game. They beat Nottingham last weekend, which shows they certainly haven’t given up, and they gave us a good run at their place back at the start of the play-offs.

They will throw everything they have at us and would love to win and knock us off the overall top spot, which would mean Cornish Pirates or London Welsh could chose to play the second leg of a potential final at their home ground.

Our 22-20 win at London Welsh on Saturday was a bit tight at the end and we allowed them to get back into the game, but it was a good test and probably similar to what we will face in the semi-final.

The ball didn’t go out to the wingers too much, but the important thing was that we won — it doesn’t matter how we do that.

We have also signed Errie Claassens and Josh Drauniniu from London Welsh and they are both really good, positive attacking players who have both been a real handful against us when we have played them this season.

They are great additions to the squad, I rate them both very highly and we will have some real strength in depth next term.