By Ed Scott
January 14 2011

After a successful return (on paper) to Aviva Premiership action over the Christmas and New Year period, we revert back to our Heineken Cup Campaign against Aironi on Saturday . It could be argued that Saturday is a dead rubber in this competition. Mathematically though, it’s still not over. Two bonus point wins would bring us to 18 points which could be enough for a runners up spot.

So, we can conclude that there is nothing to play for on Saturday…..Not even close! This is another important game for us as far as the overall season goes. We’ve not won three games on the trot since  April 2010. Momentum is essential if we want to mount any sort of campaign for the Premiership. In fact, first priority right now is surely to ensure that we  finish high enough for a place  in the Heineken Cup next season.

The wins against Irish and Leeds were messy affairs. Last week I predicted that we were possibly on the verge of a great performance to really kick start the year. I felt that it  wa s all we need ed to get us back to playing the rugby we got so used to in the second half of last season. Sadly the team clearly don’t read my previews (surely unwise!) and left me with egg on my face !

I still maintain that we just need a few things to ‘click’ to bring us back to our best. Saturday saw an improvement in the scrums and lineouts and some good moments in attack. Leeds are a team who are experts in spoiling, slowing the game down and the set piece , so in a way we did well to win whilst not really playing that well.

The debates over team selection are interesting this week. If people see the game as a  pointless then it could be a chance to play some of the fringe players. We could argue that we need to  give game time to players  who will be cover ing during the 6 Nations. We are likely to lose Moody, Hape, Wilson and Banahan. All have already got deputies in the squad who have played more than enough this season to be ready however.

Meehan has already shown that he’s not going to drop underperforming (past proven) players for youngsters coming through. If this remains the case, then why change the team?! We should just stick with our first choice XV and allow them more game time to try and get things to come together.

Lots more criticism has come Butch’s way this week, but I just can’t see Meehan dropping him. For me, unless he replaces him for Olly, then there is no point anyway! Vesty was given an awful lot of game time and for some reason it just didn’t quite work for us. I’d like to see Ben Williams on the bench this week (for whom I’m not sure though) and maybe even an opportunity for Jacques who seems to be running in tries for fun with United. This would mean leaving out someone like Biggs, Hape or Carraro altogether though, something I just can’t quite see happening. It’s far more likely that these guys will get a run when we return to the LV Cup at the end of the month.

I suppose I should give a moment to Aironi. They don't always play well away, but put one over Biarritz and gave us some considerable trouble in the second half in our away fixture. Although we must be careful, they are not however, top quality opponents. As a result we don't only need a win, but we need to win in the right manner. Anything less, and we may have to consign ourselves to the fact that D:Ream weren't right after all.