8 December: "That was the scariest moment of my life"

Published: Monday, 8 December 2008, 4:47PM

What a win that was on Saturday. We've never been so up for a game in our lives like we were against Stade Francais.

We're all really proud of the effort we put in, and the fact we made a bit of history by defeating Stade in a Heineken Cup pool game at home. But it will mean nothing if we can't beat them at The Stoop this weekend.

From a personal point of view, I’d like to clear up that business with the penalty at the end. Some people have been saying it was reversed because I said something to the referee, but that's not the case.

I didn't say a word to the referee, but I did shout in Juan Leguizamon's general direction. The whistle had gone, I knew the clock was up so I thought we’d won the game. Which I suppose at that stage we had! It was just sheer relief, I was really happy - and they’d been giving us a bit of stick too.

After that, in the last two minutes with Stade camped on our line, I've never been so scared in my life. I'd never have forgiven myself if they'd have scored but thankfully we held out. And I said sorry to all the boys afterwards.

I asked the referee to clarify why he'd done it: He said it was for flaring up the situation. There'd been a couple of little bust-ups before that and he thought it was unnecessary for me to get involved.

That’s fair enough but it's a massive call to reverse a penalty for that in the last seconds of a game and there's no law against celebrating when a decision goes your way. I spoke to a few of the Stade players later, including Leguizamon, and we had a little laugh about that incident. These things happen in the heat of the moment.

Overall it was the best defensive effort we've ever put in during my time at the club, from one through to 15. When you win like that it brings you that much closer as a group, and it will give us a lot of confidence.

But the coaches were the first to remind us that we've achieved nothing yet and we've got to focus on the next game. We know Stade are going to come down here absolutely firing on Saturday for the return match and we'll have to be on our mettle. They have to win to stay in the hunt.

I thought Mathieu Bastareau was their best player in Paris and we’ll have to keep an eye on him again. A few of the Quins boys were saying he's just so hard to tackle - you try and go low on him but he's too powerful to stop.

They've got plenty of firepower all over the pitch. Juan Martin Hernandez at ten has got a bag of tricks, Brian Liebenberg at centre is a great player - but we'll just have to shut them down like we did in Paris.

Hopefully we'll get a bit more ball and do a bit more with it at The Stoop. We can’t wait.

Cheers, DC