Sale wing Steve Hanley looks ahead to the weekend's big game in the latest instalment of his exclusive online column.

The EDF semi-final has come at just the right time for us.

It's always nice to play in games like this but it's even better when you're struggling in the league like we've been recently.

We can can go in there with no worries about draws, bonus points and teams getting points against us, it's an all-or-nothing game really, a chance for us to have a break from the constant grind of the league.

The Millennium Stadium is the only major stadium I've not played at so it'll be a pretty special occasion for me, even though I'm not playing.

I've only really been there to watch Liverpool and it's always been a great day out so I'm looking forward to it.

I'll be looking at the day from a completely different perspective, I won't be just a fan this time, although it would've been good to actually get out there and play.

The fact that the two Welsh teams are in there as well as part of a double-header will add a bit of spice on the day.

It's a special atmosphere inside that stadium and the England v Wales game looked amazing last weekend.

The amount of times people didn't stop because they couldn't hear the whistle just showed what it was like inside the place, it happened about 10 times.

If we get anywhere near that kind of atmosphere on Saturday it will be immense. I don't know what kind of crowd they're expecting but all the boys are looking forward to it.

At least we go into it on the back of a better performance.

We went a lot better against Northampton than we have done the last couple of weeks. We knew how desperate they were for the win and we matched them in terms of desire and determination.

It was a nice little bit of luck from Seabass (Sebastien Chabal) as well, getting the kind bounce from his little chip - things haven't gone for us this year so it's about time they did.

Who knows what he was thinking when he tried that? He seems to have those moments when he tries things like that but it was special.

He just spotted the space in behind and chipped it over the top. One minute they were shouting at him on the bench and the next he was a hero but that's Seabass for you.

Fair play to the boys, they ground it out and got a draw and hopefully we can kick on from there and get a couple more victories before the end of the season.

Training's been that much different this week as well because the intensity always seems to pick up when the international boys get back.

I'm not saying it's not sharp when they're away but when they come back it seems to lift it another level, so hopefully we'll see that out on the pitch.

That said, we've not done an awful lot because there are a few niggles kicking around so we just want to make sure everyone is rested up and right for the weekend.

As a side note, the end to the Six Nations last week was a cracker. For it all to be decided like that on the last day and with so much drama was great for the fans.

They treat us well at the club so we had the decent bus with Sky Sports on it for the Northampton trip and we got to see the England game but I didn't see any of the rest.

I just saw the replays of the France and Ireland games but they weren't as exciting when you knew the results already.

The atmosphere made the England game - that was probably the deciding factor - but they were beaten by the better side on the day and they really need to look at their away form because if they'd picked up a win in either Ireland or Wales they would have had the same record as the top two sides.

It'll be interesting, there really isn't that much between the top sides in the northern hemisphere so it could be very tight in the World Cup.