I DON’T think you really appreciate how much you enjoy playing the game until you have to watch from the sidelines!

That happened to quite a few of us last weekend as we beat Rochdale to book ourselves a home Challenge Cup quarter-final tie against Castleford at the end of the month.

The win over the Hornets was definitely a case of getting the job done above all else, with the performance secondary to the result.

For me, the highlight was seeing a number of our talented young players given their chance, and I think they can all be pleased with the way they performed.

But even though it was great to see them in action, I’ll still be highly delighted to take over from them again this weekend and get back onto the competitive field.

As I said, it was tough watching from the stands, and there were times I was itching to get onto the field to give the boys a hand!

Fortunately, I’ll be able to do just that against Salford today, and let’s all hope we can build up some Super League momentum on the back of returning to winning ways against Celtic Crusaders at Murrayfield.

Although we ended up winning our game fairly comfortably, we didn’t need telling that the performance still left a bit to be desired.

Our ball control was disappointing, and when you give possession away so cheaply that obviously puts pressure on your defence.

It’s clearly something we can’t afford to do today or else it could be a tough afternoon.

Having learned to win again after those bitterly disappointing defeats to Leeds and Warrington, the last thing we need right now is to take another step back.

As a team, we’ve worked so hard to be sitting where we are on the League ladder (fourth ahead of this weekend’s game), and we don’t want to see all that go to waste with some more poor losses in the next month or so.

ALTHOUGH I’m already a massive fan of the Challenge Cup, I have to confess I’m a real novice when it comes to the way it all works.

I’d been told that there’s nothing more exciting than hearing the draw live.

But I’m afraid I haven’t yet mastered the art of knowing where to catch it or how to find out what it is if you miss it.

Because we don’t have anything like this fantastic knockout competition back in Australia, it never crossed my mind that the draw might be held at the end of Sunday’s live TV game between St Helens and Catalans.

To be honest, at half-time, it seemed pretty clear that St Helens were well on their way to victory, so instead of watching the second half and then having the chance to watch the draw, I volunteered to do some baby sitting, totally oblivious to what was going on.

To be fair, I did scour the internet on Sunday night looking for the draw, but couldn’t find it anywhere, so when I turned up for training the following morning I think I was the only one who didn’t know it was Castleford at home!

All being well, this is a mistake I won’t make again when we’re in the draw for the semi-final!