Owen Lane has called on Cardiff Blues to display their true colours as he continues his comeback against Benetton Rugby on Monday night.
It has been a frustrating year or so for the young wing, who has been hampered by a succession of unrelated injuries, the latest a shoulder problem picked up in training.
He returned to action as a replacement against Ulster, started against Edinburgh and is grateful to be back on the pitch following the set-backs.
Lane said: “I’m feeling decent and the shoulder is feeling good. It was nice to get a first 80 minutes under my belt.
“I know I featured in the Ulster game but it was good to get 80 minutes under my belt last week. I’m definitely feeling a bit sore after the game so I’m still trying to shake off some of the knocks.
“But I’m in a good place and looking forward to getting out there this week.
“It’s been a whirlwind. It’s well documented that in our game the highs are really high and the lows are quite low.
“I’ve been unlucky with injuries and when my injuries have come especially over the last 12 months or so I’ve had my fair share of injuries.
“It’s very frustrating as a player because I feel like I’m doing everything I can to try and stay fit and healthy to put a string of games together and at the wrong time my body fails me.
“But I’m trying to remain as positive as possible. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been challenging mentally off the field but I’m lucky we’ve got a really good medical team here.
“They’ve given me confidence in myself and my body that I’m in a good place and hopefully that will show on the field. I’m feeling good and I’m just looking forward to getting out there and stringing a couple of games together for the Blues.
“Hopefully we can start performing and go on a bit of a winning streak for the Blues. That will always change your positivity level.
“Definitely and as a person I tend to overanalyse sometimes. My family will tell you that and they probably take the brunt of it if I’m being honest.
“That’s when you’ve got to speak to the medical team. The first hamstring injury I had and the repeated injury maybe there was a bit of learning in that.
“The shoulder injury was a freak contact injury in training. You can’t prepare for those because that’s just a game of rugby.
“I’d like to think I play in quite a physical way and the way I play is is going to lead to a couple of injuries but I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t play that way.
“I’m not going to change the way I play but hopefully I do get a bit of luck and I can stay injury free moving forward.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve what I want to achieve in the next 12 months and beyond.”
Lane’s personal frustrations are currently being replicated on a collective level following three successive defeats in Guinness PRO14 action.
The Wales international admits the squad have endured some home truths and tough lessons this week but he is hopeful they can return to winning ways at Rodney Parade.
And he has urged his team to be true to themselves and to display the attacking flair that has been less prominent in recent weeks.
He added: “We haven’t performed as well as we should have and there was some tough reviews on the Tuesday and Wednesday. We had to take a good look at ourselves and that’s reflected our training week.
“It’s been a physical week. It’s been a short week so it’s been quite intense. But we just want to go out and right some of those wrong and hopefully put in a good performance because regardless of the results we haven’t really been performing well.
“That’s frustrating for us as a group of players and hopefully we can put that right this week.
““We’ve got a really good backline and we do play an exciting style of rugby. Historically it’s where our strength is at.
“Last week we probably went away from that and tried to play Edinburgh at their own game. The conditions didn’t help.
“We talked through this week and we’ve had some really positive meetings in terms of just focusing what we are good at and getting our best ball players in the game.
“The likes of Matthew Morgan. When he’s on the ball it’s exciting and he creates opportunities.
“The likes of Jarrod. We just need to get those players touching the ball as much as possible and when they are performing, firing and getting lots of ball we tend to win games and play well.
“We’ve focused on ourselves this week and Treviso gives us and opportunity to do that. The style of rugby they play hopefully will allow our best ball players to touch the ball quite a lot and we’ll be able to play an exciting style of rugby.”
Like Lane, Jarrod Evans has also been missing from international rugby in the last month but he has responded perfectly.
While the fly-half missed last week’s loss to Edinburgh, he has been in fine form and is back fit and firing once more.
He added: “Everyone knows Jarrod is exceptionally talented and I love to see him playing so well. It makes my job a lot easier.
“I don’t need to think about what I need to do. I just need to look for him and try to get on his shoulder.
“He’s bound to make a linebreak or two and create some opportunities. You saw that with Aled’s try out in Munster.
“For outside backs it’s about trying to get on his shoulder as much as we can and communicate with him as much as we can because we can’t expect him to do everything.
“Just talking when we see the space. Hopefully he’ll be able to find us and we’ll be able to pick up a few tries off the back of it.”