The home team included Laurence Ovens, Josh Afu and Will Welch making their first home starts alongside new full-back Charlie Amesbury, and Alex Walker and Tom Catterick were on the bench with the quick-recovering Rob Vickerman, although the latter did not make it onto the field.

Albi has some interesting personnel, including a Paul Griffin lookalike at scrum-half and the black bloke from the Green Mile in the second row, and a couple of others who were possibly wearing first trimester pregnancy simulators. Dominic Feau'nati, who I am sure played as a forward in the Premiership (maybe I'm just thinking of Zak) was at 13.

The Falcons set out their intent early on, looking to attack out wide for once, and passes from Gcobani Bobo to Danny Williams and Tom Biggs came to nothing, but it was Williams, one of our better players I had neglected to mention to my brother before his first rugby game in eight-odd years, who settled out nerves by battling his way over for an early score. Jimmy Gopperth converted, and we were on the way.

A charging run by Carl Hayman helped set up Laurence “the try machine” Ovens for his second try in two starts, and Gopperth again kicked the extras. I don't know about anyone else, but although Ovens took his time getting into the team and we are obviously blessed with two fantastic first-choice props, and I am still haunted by the memory of his once-long hair, he has impressed me this season.

Albi, in possibly the ugliest kit I've ever seen on a rugby pitch, struggled to make any progress despite a penalty by Frédéric Manca.

Biggs then set up Will Welch to coast in and score by the posts, and the Albi loosehead prop was flattened for his attempts at a confrontation and was substituted with some kind of backside-related injury, I believe. Whether or not the Green Mile bloke put his hands on his teammate's injured buttocks to heal them, I guess we'll never know. The conversion again went over though.

We could have had the bonus point before half-time, however Micky Young's run past halfway was unsupported and as he stood still and kicked for the opposite corner nobody was able to catch up.

A bonus point was certainly to be expected in the second half though. One fan wasn't sure we had already won, suggesting a penalty might have been kicked to goal before half-time to increase the points difference. After the last few weeks, who could blame them I suppose?

Despite Albi attacking initially after the break, we won a penalty in our 22 and cleared, and it wasn't long before away fly-half Manca was sin-binned after a scrap, and a huge boot over to the right wing was caught by replacement hooker Alex Walker who touched down for the simple fourth try.

Just minutes later Biggs, who probably got more ball today than in the rest of the season put together, fought his way over on the left for his first try in a black shirt. Hopefully it was the first of many, and Gopperth knocked over another conversion, however the former Leeds winger was rewarded by being replaced with Tom Catterick.

Gopperth then scored his own try, although he slipped when trying to convert and although two previous kicks had bounced in off the post, this one came out.

With the result no longer in doubt, the Falcons played a nice game in search for more tries, and Charlie Amesbury got a deserved score with just a few minutes left, the conversion making the final score 45-3, as there was not enough time to bring up the 50.

So ten points and 11 tries is I think a decent return from two games, especially when we look at the fact that Montauban only have eight. Two big games coming up against them in December, but for me the most important thing is that we take today into the coming league games against Bath and Worcester as if we don't start winning in the Premiership then nothing else will matter much.

We've seen some good individual performance today, particularly from Amesbury, Williams, Welch and Hudson. We do have a decent squad and when it does click consistently, we will be a force I'm sure. How long it takes for that to happen is though a concern, and we'll know more in two weeks' time after games against two times likely to be a lot better than Albi.

But what I know for certain is that I am feeling much better as I head down south than I did at this time two weeks ago.

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