Since we came back from our tour of Australia in February, all the focus has been on getting our individual basics right with the main focus on core skills.

We have tried to restrict our travelling as long-haul flights take it out of you - although we did go to Ireland (not exactly long-haul) to give them some competitive matches before their Olympic qualification tournament.

In the first game there, I unfortunately was caught by a stick across the finger whilst closing someone down. It broke my left index finger near my knuckle.

When you're in that situation you fear the worst since we've got such an exciting time ahead of us in Beijing, but after taking my glove off and looking at it, I realised it was OK and decided to just strap it up.

I went back on for the final 20 minutes. As soon as I came off and the adrenaline subsided, I realised my finger was actually quite sore. I went for an X-ray and it was a clean break straight through my index finger.

That was devastating - nobody wants to be out for six weeks at this important time.

There are still a couple of fingers I haven't managed to break! But then there are a few I've broken more than once.

Your fingers are obviously important to grip your stick, but I'd rather damage a finger than something that would make me unable to stay fit. With my finger I could shift the focus onto fitness - not ideal but the best thing I could do in the situation.

Away from hockey my finger had minimal impact on my life, as it was luckily not the hand that I write with, but typing was interesting for me!

I managed to turn my finger problem around in just under five weeks so I was deemed fit to play in the European Cup. Each year, the winners of the Premiership go forward to represent their country in Europe, and for the past few years that's been my team, Leicester Ladies.

It's always tough in Europe but we want to compete for medals each time.

Last year we gave Den Bosch a good game in the final, narrowly losing to the Dutch side.

Unfortunately we fell short of our aims this year, though, with a loss to the German hosts Rot-Weiss Koln in the final group match ending our involvement.

It is not easy with team members changing throughout the season, which meant the connections were not quite there when we needed them to be.

It was very frustrating as, realistically, we were good enough to make the final but we were not clinical enough when we should have been.

We won our equivalent of the FA Cup at the weekend, and it was good to finish the season on a high and get some silverware for this season's efforts.

Considering Slough won the league this year, to beat them in the final was great for us. It's nice to stamp our authority and show that even without some of our players for most of the season, we're still a fighting force.

The crowds at this event were slightly better but domestic hockey only really has a man and his dog watching.

We don't have the support base that some other sports experience - and it doesn't help that we're not actually based in Leicester. We've been playing in Loughborough and have only just managed to secure a pitch at Leicester, so maybe now we'll get a bit more of a local following.

I don't know how we increase awareness of hockey - advertising maybe, but really we need to win medals as a nation.

If we do that we get more coverage, and with coverage people see more hockey in the limelight. So it's up to us to win medals and increase our audience.

The GB women's team are preparing well to have a chance of doing that. They played Argentina twice last week and won the second game - games I missed since I was playing for Leicester.

We seem to be getting more and more clinical in our attacking circle, which is an area of development for us.

Since the Australian tour we've developed a lot more focus on individual strengths and weaknesses and how we improve them, and that shows in the results.

I'm off to see my physio now - during the cup final a girl struck the ball at a short corner directly into my left quad, just above my knee, which is a little swollen.

I want to get it checked before I train this afternoon but I'm not worried, it just needs a little time for the swelling to subside and a bit of ice.

I'll be back for the weekend's training and looking forward to the Setanta Trophy in Ireland, and then it's Olympic selection.