Basic mistakes cost us dear against Sarries
THIS week is a bye week for us so with no Premiership fixture, we stayed in London for a few days after our game against Saracens last weekend.
Downtime and getting away from rugby is really important although personally, I’m not a fan of taking a full week off.
Some players like to go away for a few days when we’ve got no game but I feel I lose my momentum and my condition if I stop training.
A few days in London, though, was just what we needed as a group after a disappointing result, which I will come to later.
One of the highlights for me was a challenge we did in teams. We were split into groups of five or six and given a list of 34 landmarks to try and get round in seven hours.
We got a point for our team for every landmark we took a picture outside.
Sam Hill was our team captain and we also had Matt Postlethwaite, my brother Tom, AJ MacGinty and JL du Preez – plus our head physio Nav and another physio called Anton.
It was a good team and we managed to get to a lot of places including Stamford Bridge and the Amy Winehouse memorial.
There were points on offer for a few more challenges too, but I’m not sure I can share those!
These trips are massively important, not just for the team but for each individual too. It’s vital to work hard in training and on the pitch but to do that, you need that equilibrium and balance away from work.
You can’t keep pushing and pushing without having downtime to refresh and recharge. Having short periods away from rugby is massively important so when you come back you can go 100 per cent. Back to the rugby, and that Saracens game. It’s very hard to win games, especially against Saracens, when we make basic errors and give away a lot of silly penalties.
Saracens are a great team and they put us under pressure, but we know we can be so much better.
Our reaction after the red card was really positive. Sometimes going down to 14 men actually makes the game a little bit simpler. It helps to focus the mind on the task and, all of a sudden, you can’t overthink the game.
Maybe the opposition drops off a little bit too because they’re playing against 14 – we’re all human.
We’re back in training now and looking ahead to a massive couple of weeks. The Heineken Champions Cup starts on December 12 for us with a trip to Wales to play Ospreys, then we’re back at the AJ Bell to play Clermont Auvergne (December 18).
That’s going to be a massive occasion and we’re hoping for a big crowd. As players these are the games you want to be involved in.
Playing in Europe feels different to me, and I can’t wait to get going. In particular I’m looking forward to playing Clermont away. It’s a stadium I’ve always wanted to play in – proper bucket list stuff. I can’t wait.