This Is The Crunch - Smith

The best four of the five Pool winners will have home advantage in the last eight and be up against the fifth best Pool winner and the three best runners-up from the five Pools.

The Exiles are five points clear of Agen after Round 3 and go for the quick-fire return in France on Saturday with Director of Rugby Smith anxious for his side to stay in pole qualifying position.

"I was very happy with the five-point result against Agen and securing the try bonus point was very important," said Smith.

"However, I was a little disappointed that when we made a number of replacements in the last 20 minutes, looking to freshen things up and add some impact, that simply did not happen and I was certainly not thrilled about that.

"There are still three matches to go and we are not counting our chickens before they are hatched.

"The away game at Agen on Saturday is very important to us. If we can get the away win there - and I believe we can - then hopefully we can go on and account for Rugby Parma and Pau in the final two games.

"Because our first tournament target is to finish top of our Pool and have home advantage in the quarter-finals.

"We have got a good recent home ground record, we have won our last five matches in Reading, and we are starting to turn the Madejski Stadium into something of a fortress. Now we want to keep on doing that with the European Challenge Cup quarter-finals in mind.

"Agen will want to push the ball wide at every opportunity - they certainly showed their hand by doing that in Round 3 - and play with plenty of width to their game.

"They are a fine side but the key is to stop them at source and put pressure on their set pieces so they cannot play a free-flowing game and eliminate, or at least cut down, their counter-attacking opportunities through a very talented back three in particular.

"What pleased me in our performance was how we moved the ball around well in the first half with some very good continuity, the rewards we got with our first three tries from picking two very mobile flankers and our solid scrum."