OUR team for the trip to Pau is announced at midday and it looks as though I won’t be involved, which is gutting because the European away games are among my favourites of the season.

When the draw was made for the Challenge Cup I was looking forward to two trips to take on French teams but after missing the Castres game with a calf problem it will be the same again for this weekend. It’s frustrating but the nature of the game that injury can deny you.

I’ve not been able to train much this week and as Lyn Jones says, ‘if you don’t train, you don’t play’. Running on the pitch has been replaced by the dreaded bike and SkiErg (a Nordic skiing machine) in the gym – something that ensures you’re back on the field as soon as possible!

It won't be just myself that misses out from the starting XV, a slightly different team will get to face Pau who will be a different animal on home soil.

We want four wins in December for the second year in a row and we are halfway there thanks to our home victories against Munster and Pau but we know they will be a different animal on their own field.

It was a great win last week, we knew the potential threat at the set piece especially the scrum and we adapted to their big hit and got better as the game went on.

A pivotal moment was on the stroke of half-time when they had a scrum on our line but we kept them out and got a turnover. Not only did loosehead prop Phil Price do his job in the scrum but we won the penalty a couple of phases later.

It was a tough game and they had some big threats in the backs but we played the conditions and the fields better than them.

To not concede a point to a very good French team gives us so much confidence and our defensive record at Rodney Parade is something to be very proud of – just three tries in six games conceded.

We often talk about making our ground a fortress and with five wins so far we are proving to be a hard team to beat at home, but we want to keep building.

It’s also important that we have the same standards away from home as we do at the Parade. We know that Pau, like all French sides, will be playing a more adventurous game on their own turf but, although it’s a cliché, we are more concerned with getting our own house in order and continuing to build as a team.  If we have the same positive approach in attack and repeat our defensive attitude then we will get the rewards. We have to play smart rugby with the half-backs getting us in the right areas and controlling things.

We want to keep the momentum that we have built up recently for a pair of big derbies over the festive period with Cardiff Blues heading to Rodney Parade on December 27 before we go to the Ospreys on New Year’s Day.

Last year we were fortunate to have Bucharest home and away in December and, no disrespect to them, we were able to practice what we were doing in training against modest opposition and build.

Prime example was our driving lineout – it really came on in those Bucharest games and helped us score two tries in our win at the Arms Park on Boxing Day. We’ve got tougher opposition this year in Pau but the aim is the same.

It amuses me how so many themes from being a player with the Dragons are mirrored while part of the coaching team at Newport but we were denied the chance to build towards a big Boxing Day derby at Cross Keys.

We had been meant to go to Pandy Park in the Foster’s Challenge Cup – a development competition – on Wednesday and had planned to give boys a chance to stake a claim in a jersey and to put certain things in place leading into the big one.

Sadly the game was postponed (our third from four games in the competition to be called off!) and now we start preparing for what will be a cracker on Boxing Day as they are top of the Principality Premiership and we are on the same points in second place.