I think the team which will be the basis for the long slog of the second half of the season is gradually taking shape, and it's going to have to be an improvement on what we have seen so far - which in itself has been a great step up from last season's team

So far, I see that the forwards have won most of the MOM awards, and I think that is probably a fair indication of recruitment and also where the injuries have fallen. Nevertheless the most important feature is that the coaches have proved to themselves that they have a weapon in Smyler's goal kicking and it must be accommodated as the top priority.

With Bruza and Los also to be accommodated, that unicorn-like beast, the goal kicking 12, remains a cynosure, but the coaches appear now to have accepted that smyler is not the one if only on defensive grounds.

Instead, they have applied themselves to the question of how best to accommodate smyler at 10 while retaining some attacking edge. When he's not kicking, smyler is a lovely distributor, but with Bruza on the wing and Ansbro and Clarke on the physio table, he wasn't getting much going. His first two or three games were as a relative unknown, but as other teams got more film to analyse, defences started to flood the channels he wanted to send runners through, on the basis that they were unworried by the risk of him breaking from 10.

Thinking caps on for the coaches, then. They needed to give smyler options, which would keep the defence interested in the inside channels, thus opening other areas for his passing and tactical kicking game.

In the last couple of home games we have seen roger attacking the midfield off lineout ball which has been comprehensively speeded up- a good example of forwards and backs coaches working together. In the Bristol game Soane was joining in, and these two plus James Downey have changed the picture for the outside backs who are suddenly in much more space where smyler is only too happy to find them.

What we seem to have found out is that Bruza is now better at 15 than at wing, and is not really a 13. Los may well be able to get us 5 or 6 bonus points, of either sort, over the second half of the season. It won't always happen, but we scored 5 tries in 25 minutes on Saturday, and if you want to roll the dice with tries in mind, he's your man. It could be crucial. And we seem to have found a way to play with smyler at 10 without being reduced to crabbing across the face of the defence.

Looking at personnel we are deeper than we may have expected in the backs. Smyler's displays at 15 have been by no means poor, digger is becoming a genuine option in any of the 11/14/15 shirts, Sean is due back before long which should stiffen the defence right up, as should the return of two specialist outside centres, and at Bedford we have will harries who is taking ND1 apart, but in a thoroughly GP way (i.e. he has all the relevant union skills, plus even more pace than he did). Dickson is profiting from having Alan Dickens around (great box kicking on Saturday) and li'l Ben looks more of a 9 each week.

In all, in the backs, we look as if we have at this stage figured out what we are and what we can do, as well as how to do it. Now we need to get it to work more and more efficiently and reliably.

In the forwards the first big step forwards was at the breakdown - a weakness for years after a big improvement we were stopped slightly in our tracks by the Besty saga, but first big roger and Scotty picked up the slack, now Courtney, then hoppers and finally mark Easter have also picked it up. We have found one extra international level player plus two younger ones who can play at premiership level.

When the 6 nations come along I expect Dylan, Euan and Scotty to be involved, whether Sean gets the call or not we shall see. Scotty has been a surprise here, and partly as a result we will not have the traditional underdog's advantage during that period, unlike Bristol, Newcastle, Wuss and Sorries for instance.

We at least have solid cover for Scotty now that mark Easter has shown his hand at 7.hopefully Soane and the bear can do a decent job covering euan. Besty also will be back at the end of January

The other question marks over the forwards were whether the lineout could be improved, and whether fatigue might prevent us from mustering much of a showing in the second row when the muddy grounds have a bearing

Well, looking at the second row, nacho has been a revelation in just about every possible way. We were reliably informed he was a 60-minute man, but he often lasts all game. He happily does his thing at the lineout and has become part of our best pod-as a lifter as well as our go-to man at restarts with amazing hands. Daisy was touted as a decent jumper, but a bit less than hard-core. However, he's bigger than he was, he's not backing away from anyone, and he seems to have got a sprinkling of nacho's glitter. In addition we have young Kruger, who seems to have had a significant influence on our lineout tactics and who is another big athletic lock. Again, bad luck to Phil Hoy on the injury front, but James Cannon is getting top marks week in, week out at Bedford, and Alex Rae and Courtney are desperate for a shot .if we get unlucky with injury at lock, we have lots more resources than we did.

In all, when the 6 nations comes around, we will be a lot better placed at back row and at lock than we were for the AIs

As for the lineout, touch wood, but for one thing we should not again be furnished with any less than 3 jumpers plus big Roger in any game this season.

Since Freddie arrived we also seem to be working on a new philosophy to produce quick ball from both front and back. Taking out some of the excessive movement and dummying and relying instead on jumpers really jumping, lifters chosen for height who really lift and an accurate throw to a tall fast jumper at the top of his leap looks absolutely the way to go. The coaches have married this to a carrying game up the 10/12 channels, which ideally suits our backs when they want to spread the ball.

Now, if the defence can really start to cut down on what they are allowing at present, it looks as if we may have found a shape and pattern of play we can rely on.