By Duncan Wood
September 27 2002

Alex Brown spared me a few minutes during a break from training this week. He answered questions about the season so far, his role in the team and how he's feeling after a summer off due to ankle surgery.

Is there any pressure mounting internally or is it blown out of proportion by the media?

It's all media stuff really. We're trying to stay together as a team, trying to do well for the weekend and trying to just concentrate on the next game really.

Team spirit's quite good?

Yeah, we're all really close friends, everyone of us so we're all trying to stay positive. We're pretty disappointed we didn't come away with two wins from the first four. We deserved to lose the first one and, at Gloucester at the weekend, we didn't perform well enough to win it.

In terms of your own personal role in the team, are you still taking responsibility for the lineout calls?

Yes, still controlling that area. It's a good challenge. How difficult is it to make those calls when you're in the thick of the action? Very difficult especially when you're up against a good defence and you can see them all lining up and you're thinking about where you're going to throw it. It's all about manipulating people really.

Do you find that you're more of a marked man than a couple of seasons back?

Definitely, yeah, which is why I'm not throwing it to myself much any more! It's good that I've got the likes of Salts, Arch and Ross who are all really good jumpers to throw it to. There are plenty of other options.

One of your other roles is restarts - how much practice goes into those?

Pretty much every day. Restarts are very difficult to take charge of really. Especially when they split the kicks. I'm not really in charge, it's down to Arch and me and all the other jumpers. It's more of a team thing. It's quite a difficult area because the ball could go anywhere.

Ankle surgery ruled you out of contention for the England summer tour. How's the ankle now?

It's feeling ok. I wouldn't say it's 100% but it's ok. I think it's going to take a while and I'm just going to have to live with the fact that it'll be a while until I'm back to 100%. I'm really pleased with the way things have gone and it's good to have a rest! I haven't had a rest for a couple of seasons with all the tours. It's good to have a bit of a rest and come back feeling fresher although it still doesn't feel like we've had an off season with last season finishing on June 6th or whenever it was!

Putting the league to one side for the minute, are you looking forward to the Heineken Cup?

Yes, very much so. I haven't played very much in Europe at all. Montferrand away - that'll be fun! No, really looking forward to it.

Any message for the supporters ahead of Sunday?

Please support us! Stick with us and we'll have a win sometime soon. Leicester's one to win and one we always try to win and it's as good a place as any to start.