BRETT ORMEROD is hoping his spell at Leeds will help kick-start his Saints career.

After starting the season's opener against Aston Villa, Ormerod fell behind James Beattie, Kevin Phillips, Peter Crouch in the strikers' pecking order.

And with the likes of Leon Best and Dexter Blackstock emerging, a question-mark was hovering over his St Mary's future.

But the 28-year-old has bounced back countless times during his career and is now relishing the fight to regain his place in the first team.

"Competition for places is nothing new, it's nothing I haven't faced when I came here," said Ormerod.

"Competition for places is healthy. If you feel you have a chance to play you wait your turn.

"But I had fallen down the pecking order and needed to get my chance to play. I do feel a bit better and refreshed and hopefully I can get a few games here now."

"You can get into a bit of a rut when you are not playing every week. If there's no game and you are not on the bench it can get a bit disheartening.

"I wanted to get my sharpness back, I felt a bit heavy legged with the lack of games."

Unfortunately for Saints and Ormerod, an injury-crisis among the strikers coincided with his departure to Elland Road.

But he showed his usual willingness for the cause yesterday when coming on as a second-half substitute in the goalless draw against Birmingham less than 24 hours after completing his loan at Leeds and playing an entire Championship game at Brighton.

He later revealed that the last time he played two games in two days was as an under-nine.

But Ormerod's attitude to playing football has clearly not changed one bit in the past 20 years.

"From struggling to get a game, now I've played two in 24 hours so it has totally turned on its head," he said.

"It was ironic to go on loan and then have all these injuries. You couldn't have written the script to be honest, but I just have to get on with it.

"It was a bit tiring yesterday but you've just got to do these things sometimes.

"It was pretty tiring at Brighton - plenty of rain and wind so it took a bit out of my legs.

"But to be honest after about five minutes I felt all right and kept going.

"It has been a bit gung-ho, but I've got through it."

Although Saints had slipped to the bottom of the table by the time he arrived back in Southampton on Saturday night, Ormerod stressed he did not detect any sense of panic in the dressing-room.

"The lads are in good spirit and we know if we get one or two wins you go to mid-table," he said.

"We are not panicking and we know we are well capable. Steve Wigley has a good relationship with the lads and we just hope to get a few wins.

"If we keep working hard hopefully we can turn it around. We are off the bottom and hopefully in a few weeks we can pull a few wins together and we will be right back up there.

"The lads are not too disheartened, we all know the situation and it is just a case of getting our heads down."

Ormerod now looks likely to start against Colchester on Wednesday night in the Carling Cup, with yesterday's initial experiment of playing Fabrice Fernandes in-behind Dexter Blackstock not really working.

"Winning does breed confidence so Wednesday is important," added Ormerod.

"It doesn't matter who you play, you have got to beat them and they will have nothing to lose."