Sharks wing Steve Hanley provides a view from the Edgeley Park dressing room in his latest online column.

We all felt utterly deflated after the Ospreys game.

It was close and we had our chances but we just didn't take them. I think with all the effort we put into it, it left us completely exhausted.

We were absolutely desperate to get through to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals so we put every ounce of energy into trying to beat them.

The odds were always against us though what with all the injuries we've had, so there was no shame in defeat, although that doesn't make us feel any better.

I was relatively pleased with my own performance. I didn't get hold of the ball as much as I would have liked considering it was a game in which we needed to score tries but I think I carried out my other duties well.

With Wiggy (Richard Wigglesworth) playing fly half, the coaches wanted somebody to do the kicking from hand so they looked to me and i think I did quite a good job of it, although it was strange.

At the end of it all, we wouldn't have got through anyway, no matter what the result was, because of Leicester's win in Munster.

We know first hand how hard it is to go to Thomond Park and get a result so it was an incredible performance from them.

But with the Heineken Cup now over for us, we just have to concentrate on the task at hand.

We have a trip to the Milennium Stadium to look forward to in the EDF Cup and that will be superb because it's one of the only big stadiums I've not played at yet. I've already played at Murrayfield, Lansdowne Road and Twickenham so the Milennium will be another one to tick off my list.

We've also got the Premiership play offs to aim for, starting with the trip to Gloucester at the weekend.

It's not going to be easy, Kingsholm is always a difficult place to go to, but if we keep it tight and don't let them get on top early on, we'll stand a chance.

As a squad, we're still confident we can recover from our recent bad spell so don't write us off yet.