Hello and welcome to my brand new blog that I'll be writing every week for itv.com/rugby.
I'll be writing about life with Harlequins in the Guinness Premiership, and if I'm lucky enough to be picked, playing for England. I'll give you the inside track on the games I’m involved in and hopefully some insight into life as a pro rugby player.
So down to business: running in five tries against the Pacific Islanders on Saturday was a good effort for a team playing together for the first time. There's plenty there for us to build on. Scoring 39 points against any international outfit is pleasing and it was one of the best days I've had in rugby so far.
Personally it was satisfying to have a hand in some of those tries, now I'm just waiting for the boss Martin Johnson to announce his line-up for the massive game against Australia this weekend. I hope I did enough to warrant another start, but Harry Ellis did well for the last 20 minutes after I came off and he'll be knocking on the door.
It was great to get on the pitch with Danny Cipriani again. We played together for England at the Under-19 World Championship in Dubai a couple of years back so we already have a good understanding. Playing with a talent like Danny, you can't help but pick things up along the way and I think we've learnt a lot from each other.
Another of the positives of this England side is that we have plenty of pace all around the park. Speaking of which, it was good to show the Pacific Islanders defence a clean pair of heels in the first half, but it would have been better if I'd managed to ground that ball! I was gutted not to score - but let's look at the positive side - I didn't let it affect me and I carried on getting stuck in.
Naturally I've taken a bit of stick from a few people about that moment and the text messages were flying in after the game. Everyone congratulated me on the win, while in most cases commiserating with me on missing out on a try. Some weren't quite as kind as others, as I'm sure you can imagine!
The consensus seems to be that England struggled at times in the second half on Saturday, but as I said, it was uncharted territory for the 22 players in the squad. There will be plenty of things to smooth over this week in training, and playing Australia will be another level altogether.
Plenty of fans will expect the Wallabies to be out for revenge after their World Cup defeat in Marseille last year. But they'll have to be focused on the task at hand - and this is a new era for England too.
Make sure you read my blog next week when I hope we’ll be celebrating another defeat for Australia.
Cheers, DC
