Harlequins winger Dan Luger is hoping to repay the faith shown in him by England manager Clive Woodward when he lines up against Wales on Saturday.

Full-back Jason Robinson's stomach injury - and Austin Healey's subsequent positional switch to number 15 - has opened another window of opportunity as far as Luger is concerned.

"I thought that I might get on the bench if Jason got a knock, but obviously, I am delighted to be back in the side," he said.

"Clive (Woodward) has backed me in the past, and hopefully, I can repay him on Saturday."

Luger is the first to admit that Quins' domestic struggle - they have lost eight of their last nine league games - has made for a testing time.

"It's been difficult. We haven't been playing very good rugby, and I have found it hard to get my hands on the ball," he added.

"We are in a massive hole, which makes things tough, and we have got a lot of work to do if we are going to stay up. But we will keep trying and keep plugging away, and hopefully, we can pull off the wins that we need."

A hamstring problem has restricted Luger to barely a handful of games since Christmas, yet despite such repeated injury frustrations, he is not one to sulk and feel sorry for himself.

Last summer an accidental training collision with England team-mate Neil Back wrecked his Lions Test team chances in Australia.

A certainty for coach Graham Henry's line-up to face the world champion Wallabies, Luger was left nursing a fractured cheekbone, barely a month after proving his fitness to travel Down Under following a previous injury.

"The Lions injury was devastating when it first happened, and it was a hard couple of weeks after that," he recalled.

"But I had Will Greenwood, Phil Greening and Mike Catt, who were also injured, for company, and we looked after each other.

"It has gone now, and I can honestly say that I am over it. I can still say that I played for the Lions - I pulled the shirt on, even if I didn't get a Test cap, and that's pretty pleasing.

"When something like that happens, you have got to battle on and continue going. Last autumn, England beat Australia and South Africa, which helped erase those injury memories.

"Those two games were fantastic, and then I pulled my hamstring just after Christmas, so it has all been a bit up and down.

"I only played a few games, then I got back on the England bench in Paris, was dropped by the club and now I am back in the England team.

"But I've just got to forget about that now. I've got a big challenge at the weekend, and I and I want to get out there and perform.

"We know that Wales are going to be massively up for this game. We lost our last match, and we have a point to prove, but if we don't perform to our best, then we will lose."