IT'S nice to return to Rodney Parade this evening after two tough away defeats and hopefully we'll turn the tables on Irish opposition when we host Leinster.

We go into the game on the back of probably our best away performance of the season at Guinness PRO12 champions Connacht.

Some criticism keeps coming our way and I suppose that is fair enough, because the hunt for a win away from Newport goes on.

We have to break that cycle but I am confident we'll do that if we perform like we did in Galway after fighting back from a poor start.

I must admit things were looking bleak when we were down 14-0 after 14 minutes after being a bit naïve but we clung on in there to get to half-time and played well in the second half.

It was frustrating looking back at the game in analysis early in the week because we left two or three big chances on the table, something you can't afford to do against top teams.

We experienced the previous week how ruthless Munster are and they showed that a couple of hours before we lost in Galway by ending the Ospreys' winning streak (and that win in Swansea puts our loss in Cork into context, they are a quality side even without their international stars).

We were chasing the game after the first quarter against both Munster and Connacht and it was a similar situation when we went to Dublin in December. We can't afford a repeat tonight.

Leinster are a quality side in attack and defence and are sitting second in the table but we've had a decent record against them at Rodney Parade in recent years.

It'd be a third win on the spin against them in Newport and we have to put in a big performance against their strong pack and concentrate in defence against their lively backs.

Even without the likes of Jonathan Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and Rob Kearney they showed how dangerous they can be at the RDS.

On the whole our defence has been good at home but we need to take a leaf out of Munster's book and be ruthless when we get in the 22. Our starter plays off set piece have been really good this season but we have to be more patient.

That comes with confidence and it'd be a big boost to beat a quality Leinster side, setting us up for a big end to the season.

There was another big performance by my back row colleague Ollie Griffiths (along with Nic Cudd) in Galway and he's one of a number of our players with a bright future.

I get a bit of stick for being an old man in the team now, one of the few of us born in the 1980s, and it felt that way on Tuesday when celebrating my business partner Rich Davenport's 30th at a surprise party at Lamb.

We'll be holding another Q&A in the pub with a couple of players after the game tonight while the atmosphere has been really good for the Six Nations, so it'd be nice to have it packed out to watch Wales tomorrow.

Fingers crossed there will be a Welsh win in Scotland this weekend and then we can repeat the trick when we head up to Glasgow a week on Saturday.