Inaugural Blog eh?

So I figure it's not right for a man in my profession to be a luddite so I've decided to create a blog. I suppose there's plenty going on over here at the moment so I'll try and get a few bits and pieces posted every couple days. Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and knowing me this'll peter out after a few weeks but how and ever!

So anyway, what news from Aotearoa? well, the physio has cleared me to play on Saturday, my back is way stronger and I went well at training last night. The team has plenty of changes since I played here last but there's some serious talent there still. The likes of Hoggy, Cluffy and Carlito are still the backbone of the team. I guess I'm an ould stager at this stage too.

Some strange changes have been made to the laws of the division since I played last. The CRFU have opted of "Safety Rules". This basically means that the scrum is tightly governed. Some of the changes include

• Scrum may only turn 45. When it does the ball is returned to the team who were initially awarded the scrum
• The scrum may only be pushed 1.5m on the straight
• The defending scrum-half cannot pass his own props
  

As you can tell these rules level the playing field a huge amount but for a team with a gigantic pack it takes away a lot of our ability to really put pressure on the opposing 8

This weekend we've got Suburbs at home (our first home game of the season, more on that later). They're a predominantly maori/islander team. They were called Hoon Hay until they took in Halswell. They featured in the finals last year and they appear to be scoring pretty heavily this year too. Luckily they've lost a game already so they have weaknesses.

Traditionally they include a lot of league type players. They can run the ball from anywhere on the park and they tend to really punish loose play. The last time I played them we went into the game with a pretty old-school approach and managed to grind them down. Their set-piece is an area we can target and hopefully we should be able to disrupt their patterns. If this happens the outside backs should have a good run at it.

So, first home game, yup, that's right...court session. Beer will be spilled, people will inevitable throw up and new nicknames will be assigned. Thoroughly childish fun but it really does make a huge difference to the team. I think a lot of people open up and get involved in the slagging after they've been up in front of the judge. I presume Tiny, Cluff and Hogg will be doing the honours, they mentioned my name but I declined. I think it'd be a bit naff for me to rock up without proving myself and start getting too mouthy.

So that covers the rugby situation. I think I'll start another post to cover some of teh other stuff that's going on (You mean there's more to life than rugby???)