Despite having to do a Diego Maradona imitation, Trevor Brennan looks back on a productive week.

Last Monday's team meeting. Our coach Guy Noves is ranting and raving about Leicester and about losing the final to Wasps last year, about the World Cup winners in their squad. This was going to be France versus England, with the odd Paddy and a few other assorted internationals thrown in.

Personally I hate giving the opposition too much respect so I kind of switched off for a while. He asked Romain Millochlusky if he was up for the challenge of playing Martin Johnson, would he cope with the pressure? Romain said yes. He is a hard-grafting youngster but very quiet off the pitch. Then all of a sudden I heard my name being mentioned and my ears cocked up when I heard the words caviar and Martin Johnson. He was asking me how I would react if Johnson did this or that.

After the meeting I went to the physio to get treatment for the leg injury I'd been struggling with since the Clermont Auvergne game as I'd got a bad rucking in that game. Guy appeared in the physio's room and asked if I'd understood what he'd said. He was putting my fist up to my face and pushing me now; the usual. If Johnson does this and does that, what will I do?

"Will you get sent off, because you know we can't afford to have you sent off?"

"Tu connais Diego Maradona?" I asked him.

"Oui," he replied.

"Well, on Sunday I will be Diego Maradona," I told him, and I rolled off the bed, landed on the ground and feigned injury.

"That's the Trevor Brennan I want," he said, and left the room pointing two fingers into the right side of his head, whistling a couple of times, and saying: "Crazy Irishman."

I did some bike work and weights for the next couple of days, joining in a light team run on Thursday. Friday was a day off. I brought my Sky Box to the shop where I had bought it as the remote control wasn't working, met the ERC commercial manager Diarmaid Murphy for lunch and returned home.

"Where's the Sky box and control," were the first words out of Paula's mouth. Merde. The shop was an hour's drive away through traffic on a Friday evening so I gave the lie that it would take two or three days to fix it. She wasn't having it. So I was made ring the shop and was told it was ready for collection.

When I got there, the fella in the shop asked me if I had a dog. I said "no, why?" he explained that the control looked like it had been chewed up by a dog. So he asked me if I had kids and when I said two he asked me "boys or girls?" Two boys. "That explains it," he said.

On Friday night Alfie (Gareth Thomas) rang to ask me if we needed our suits. I said of course, for such a big game. Saturday came, Paula and Dan waved me off (Josh was still in bed) and, when I got to the club for breakfast, Alfie asked me why I didn't have a suit carrier. Merde again. Paula came to the rescue by getting to the club in less than half an hour.

We were the first commercial flight on our plane, and it even had the club logo on the emergency exits. Alfie was very impressed so I gave Fabien Pelous on my right the wink and he led Alfie to believe the club had bought this plane, and that other companies will use it, which will pay for its maintenance.

Fred Michalak's first "captain's run" in the Walkers Stadium on Saturday was a quick lap followed by some touch rugby. Nice and relaxed. Typical Freddy. When we came together at the end of the team run I wound the boys up by telling them that the Irish media had quoted John Wells as saying that we were bad travellers, had a bad scrum, our lineout was no good (which, if he had said it, wouldn't have been a million miles from the truth on the day) and that he was looking forward to Leicester's fourth final.

"Did he really?" they asked, so I told them I'd had loads of calls and texts about it. They were fuming by the end of this, but I wanted to wind them up to get the best out of them.

Come Sunday we had about 1,000 supporters there and they made a good bit of noise in fairness to them. It was every bit as physical up front as I expected. They ran everything at us, especially through their number eight Henry Tuilagi. After our early try we spent the rest of the first half defending.

Jean Bouilhou was a big loss with a dislocated elbow, and he's gone for the season now. After he went off our lineout fell apart. I was moved to take Gregory Lamboley's position in the middle of the lineout, Greg went back to Jean's place. And Izzy (Maka) isn't really a lineout option unless you have a crane, although he did win one ball.

At half-time we had a chance to talk about it and Guy Noves said we weren't playing our normal running rugby. We had got into a defensive mode and once we had the ball we were kicking it away, and defending again. Go out and enjoy the next 40 minutes he told us. You're not here by chance, you deserve to be here. That lifted a few heads and we scored two tries in the second half.

Izzy made a good impact and so did Gareth, the two combining for Freddy's clinching try. Guy had gone on about Martin Johnson again in the pre-match talk and so I avoided situations where there was going to be anything physical. When niggles broke out once or twice I stood off and watched it unless I was really needed.

I was frustrated not to get my hands on the ball a little bit more. That was a big chance for me to show how much I've come on over here. But certain games just don't go your way. I'd normally be used a lot running off nine or 10, breaking gain lines, but it was just one of those games where we didn't have the platform to do that.

After the video session yesterday I'm even more convinced that we were lucky to win that game. I was the last line of defence when I looked out and saw four Leicester guys outside me. I had to make a decision to go up and try and smash Darren Morris, taking ball and all, when he dropped it as myself and Freddy both charged up. It was a certain try if the ball had gone to hand. He had Lewis Moody, Andy Goode, Neil Back all outside him.

It was great to beat Leicester in their own city and get that monkey of being bad travellers off our shoulders. It was all go afterwards. I met up with The Fanatic and his nine friends for a quick drink in the hotel they were staying in across the road from the Walkers Stadium.

We had an hour-and-a-half bus journey to Birmingham, the plane was delayed by 90 minutes until 9.30 and we didn't get back until 1.30am where there were about 1,500 people there to cheer us through the airport.

Two days later we're still feeling the aches, pains and knocks. I am anyway. My leg is very sore, and we have a rendezvous in Paris next Saturday with Stade Francais in a rehearsal for our third "H Cup" final in three years. Worth the pain though.

Finally, Alan Kelly, the one-time Leinster physio who looks after hurlers, footballers and other sportspeople, promised me some memorabilia for the bar some time ago and duly delivered last Monday; Kieran McGeeney's Armagh jersey and note attached: "Trevor, Geezer's jersey as promised. Hope all is well, talk soon, AK. PS: DJ's jersey is on the way." Thanks, it'll go up beside Enda Murphy's Kildare jersey.

(Trevor Brennan's regular Heineken Cup column can be read on the ERC website, which is at www.ercrugby.com)