To say that the 2008 Six Nations has not gone according to plan for England - or me - so far would be a massive understatement.

We threw away victory against Wales in the opening game and then laboured to a narrow win over Italy. Next up is the daunting task of a trip to Paris to play the French who, on the evidence of the opening two rounds of games, have been the form team of the tournament.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’m fit for the game after I came off in the first half against Wales with the same problem I’ve had since the World Cup. It’s my achilles heel which has been flaring up and I’ve a sore hip as well  - I think one’s linked to the other.

It was sore in the warm-up before the Wales game, but it wore off until I went for the first kick-off and Martyn Williams nudged me as I went through, I landed awkwardly on it and that was it.

It is so frustrating because I’ve really been enjoying my rugby and things have been going well. Hopefully the injury will clear up once and for all this time.

It’s time as well for this England side to deliver over the course of a full 80 minutes. Some of the rugby we showed in the first half against Wales, and at times against Italy, was a joy to watch but we tried to force things in the second half, placed ourselves under undue pressure and it cost us dear.

And that is down to a bit of inexperience. It’s the same in any sport, you must get the balance right between youth and experience and although we do have that in the side at the moment, we’ve just got to produce a good, consistent team effort.

However, I believe we are still heading in the right direction and  the right people are in place to play the way we want to and achieve success. It’s just a matter of gelling together and knuckling down. There will be hard times, people will always write you off unless you beat teams by 50 points every week - it’s just one of those things.

We’ve had a few early setbacks but we know we have quality throughout the squad. The proof of how far we’ve come and how far we have to go is when we play France. It is a daunting task to play them on their own patch, but we proved that we can beat them in the World Cup semi-finals and now we’ve got to go out there and do it again.

The French have looked breathtaking in attack in this tournament so far. But the way the French pack capitulated against Ireland gives us confidence, especially with the forward pack we have which produces consistently week in, week out.

I just hope Andrew Sheridan and Phil Vickery are fit to put that French front row under pressure - the front row boys will relish getting stuck in.