FIRSTLY, I would like to use my opening monthly column with The Worcester Observer to say thank you to everyone who turned out on Friday night for my testimonial match.
It was a bit of a surreal experience to be honest. I was rushing around and going from one thing to the next, so I did not get much of a chance to soak everything up until I walked out on to the pitch at Sixways, which was a brilliant moment for me and my kids.
Unfortunately the result and the performance did not go as well as the boys would have liked, but as Dean Ryan has said all along this is a working progress and it is not going to be a polished article by the time they kick-off their season.
Obviously there has been a lot of hype around Worcester’s first game against Bristol as they are the two teams that everyone is picking to be shooting it out for promotion at the end of the season.
In the grand scheme of things, though, this opening clash is not the be-all-and-end-all. It is important for both sides to lay a marker down for later in the campaign.
But the Championship season and the Premiership season are very different – and I have spoken to Dean about this.
If you lose your first Premiership game and then you lose your next all of a sudden you start to get into a bit of rut and you can soon find yourself in a hole as other teams start to pull clear.
But with the Championship it is all about peaking at the right time for the play-offs.
It is going to be a tough season and it will be a learning curve for those boys who are used to the luxuries of top flight rugby.
But they should back themselves as they have got a talented squad and when they find their feet I am sure Worcester will put their stamp on the league.