BEATING Bucharest Wolves 57-13 at Sixways has kept us firmly on track to progress in the Amlin Challenge Cup.

The scoreline was comfortable and I think we made it look convincing so we were really pleased to get the win and the bonus point to keep our group alive.

We are very much in the picture to advance if we can win that final showdown against Stade Francais in Paris at the end of January.

But, before that, there is the match against Banca Monte Crociati Parma at Sixways next month and we certainly won’t be underestimating the Italians.

It will be a similar kind of situation to Bucharest in that, first and foremost, we have to win the match and if we can do it with four tries that would be great. However, they will throw everything at us and if we are not on our game 100 per cent we will come unstuck.

It’s really important we do the job in front of us but Stade Francais is the ultimate goal.

Although we secured the bonus point against Bucharest, we were fairly disappointed with a lot of our game.

It was tough because they didn’t play with a lot of structure and it made our lives more difficult to play with our patterns.

With the Leicester match coming up next Tuesday, it was hard to get some good preparation in because the Tigers are going to be a lot better organised.

But, in terms of our attacking play, I thought we showed glimpses of some really good stuff with Marcel Garvey scoring two tries.

One thing the European fixtures do give you, however, is an opportunity to stake a claim for a place in the Warriors Aviva Premiership team.

Everyone wants to be playing in the Premiership and in the first team so it’s good that we can give head coach Richard Hill a few options when it comes to selection – we wouldn’t have it any other way as a club.

It’s a great position to be in because we have got three or four players who are genuinely putting their hands up for selection in each position. Nobody is complacent and it means whoever gets picked will bring quality to the team.

Leicester has got to be the focus now for the next week and we will be looking to see where we can do well against them and how they might be able to hurt us.

Our preparation will be very thorough and we want to start climbing that league table.

We will get Christmas Day off but other than that we will be at Sixways training and making sure we are ready for the Tigers.

Everyone is really focused on that but we are looking forward to spending some time together at this time of year and with our families.

I would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and hopefully we can provide the Warriors fans with some festive cheer on Tuesday.