Latest news from Palmy.....

Hello everybody!
So the last 2 days have been really tough and hard, but it's been worthwhile, cause i made the team to go to auckland this w-end! I know it's a blessing from God and I must go full out this w-end to cement my place in the team. It looks like I am playing No.8 which doesnt really bother me, I've been enjoying playing 6-flank the last 2 games (remember that here the #6 flank is the blindside flank and not the opensider! ) Our new coach is really good and at training there is always new stuff to learn. I am really looking forward to the next few months, I know how much I've grown as a player the last 3 weeks and i think the next few months is gonna be a big learning curve!
Since last friday it has been really good weather here, when i say good i mean no raining, so i cant complain on that side!
Tonight is my first night i'm going to one of the cell groups of the church. The people are all more or less my age and tonight is "dessert night" (you have to take a dessert to cell group) so i'm looking forward to some yummy desserts after training! I've baked a malva pudding, hope they like it. It's not one of my best malva's ever, but it's okay for a 2nd time in 10 months! Malva and custard.....mmmmm! :)
Thats all for now, i had a record number of 2 comments on one of the previous posts and was i happy bout it! Remember if you leave a anonymous comment, pls leave yr name! thanks!
You all have a great day! Remember it's a blessing to be alive and live life to the fullest!

More 70's photo's!

Here are some more photo's!

Born in the right era!

We had our 70's party on Saturday night after our game and it was great fun! What helped alot is that we won our game 46-12 and everyone was in a festive atmosphere and in happy moods! I can tell you one thing and that is i am glad i didnt spent my youth in the 70's cause the clothes they wore were not so comfartable, it's all tight fit (the pants) and those afro's......imagine waking up every morning with a hairdo like that! No thanks, i was born in the right era!

in the pics are a few of my team mates and the green and white track suites...they originals from the 70's! It took me 3 shops to find big enough size clothes to wear and i couldnt find shoes, but hey, you win some you loose some! :)

The guy in the orange shirt is our coach and the one on his left is our team manager.

This coming week is gonna be a tough, long and hard week, but if you make it to the end, the reward will be more than satisfying! I want to sit on that plane on friday, flying to auckland for a warm-up game, only 22 players is going and that will be most likely the new coach's "A" team, so if i can make that and keep on performing, i hope to stay in the team and run onto that field, in 4 weeks, for the first game against Auckland.

Have a blessed week all of you and i have a surprise prize for the 1st person that leaves a comment again!

greetings from down under!

PS. I've been having problems with the pic's in this comment, it dont want to enlarge when clicked on. Sorry for the inconvinience, am trying best to sort it out!

First win for the Turbo's!

Last night we played our second pre-season game against our neighbor's, the wairarapa busch team and we've got our first win for the seaon! Our team's official name for the NPC season is the "Manawatu Turbo's" and last night we needed more than just our turbo's to register the win. It was a very hard, physical game and we've had a long, tough week behind us, but we managed to pull through and won 26-19. At the end it was two very good tries from consecutive kick offs that sealed the game for us. Well deserved, if I must say so myself! :)
Personally i think my game went okay, i cant elaborate any more than a "just ok" cause sometimes you get surprised when you analyse your game. Dont think it went badly, it's just..i'll be able to tell by means of team selection. By next week wednesday we will know who is in the team for the Northlands game (another warm-up game). Until then it's head down and keep on going forward!
The other good news was that my ribs didnt bother me that much and I played the whole 80min without any discomfort, i was tired at the end as it was my first game in 3 weeks. I need to make sure that i keep on playing each w-end from no on in to get back my match fitness!
We are playing our last club this w-end (thats if you make the NPC team) and we having the 70's theme party afterwards at the Cobb & Co, am lookin forward to it, will take some pic's and put in on the blog!
Latest news just in is the following: There is snow on the mountain range surrounding Palmerston North and the wind is FREEZING cold, oh how i love this place! :)
cheers!

Price converting

I've always heard that you should never compare prices and convert them back to your currency back home when you overseas, cause it doesnt work like that and you should work with your current currency and spend money according to your salary that you earn in that particular foreign country.

Now i know why, cause the other day i paid R16 for a cucumber and R24 for a pineapple, when you buying meat, you'll pay R60/kg for chicken breasts and R45/kg for topside mince, the price for steaks/fish is more or less the same. Groceries in general aint that expensive, you get the odd few things which you'll think twice about before buying,but its not too bad.

Now when you fill up your car, thats another story, cause here we pay $1.70 per liter petrol, thats R7,36/liter!! ok, se we dont have to drive far to get to certain places like back in SA, but still....

Shoes are much cheaper here when you convert them back, i had to buy myself new boots and it cost me R680 where in SA it will cost me R900 and more. Clothes are also cheaper and here things work the right way around meaning that in the winter, there are specials/savings/sales on winter clothing, not summer clothing and vice versa! Technology is also so much more advanced and cheaper here, local phone calls are FREE and internet is FAST and CHEAP!

I'm enjoying my stay here in NZ, i cant express it in the right ways, i guess you have to experience it yourself to fully understand!

anyway,this was just a short extra info post!

hope you all well!

cheers!

Rain, rain, rain and then again......rain!

So it's been raining on and off here for the last week or so. All the public parks and fields in palmy has been closed off and the Arena (thats the place where we train and the stadium is) has also been closed off and we not allowed to train there. They dont want the grass to get damaged. So we training out at Massey University, at IRANZ (International Rugby Academy) and they have an indoor training hall, indoor scrum machine and their fields are also very well drained (dunno if thats the right word) so when we need to do team runs, we do that outside. But it's been fun and the last week were such a learnin curve. I think i mentioned in the previous blog a guy named jono philips. He's the skills coach for the hurricanes, i've learned more with him in 3 sessions bout certain aspects of the game then I have in the last few years. They give some much attention to the small, technical things of the game and they drill it into you untill it becomes second nature. We are playing wairarapa busch (2nd div provincial team) this coming wednesday, and i am looking forward to implementing some of the stuff i've learned.
My ribs are still not a 100% but i know things will go well on wednesday and wont have a problem with it. At the moment i'm playing blindside flank, which i dont mind, as long as i stay in the starting line up. Here they give you a list of things they expect from you in your specified position and you better be able to tick all of them off after each game, cause that's the only way you (and they) judge yourself and also improve as a player.
On friday nite at church we had a speaker from australia......man was this a good service. it was also the term's big "music" evening and it totally rocked! He delivered such a good message and the whole evening the auditorium had this atmosphere that was just so awesome! If that was so good I cant wait to go to the Hillsong Mens Conference at the end of the year in Sydney, i think that will be one unbelievable, great experience!
This coming w-end my club has a 70's theme party at our club house, which is a hotel by the way, named the Cobb & Co. I need to go find me some 70's clothing so if any of your old fellas have some ideas, please leave it in a comment on the site at the bottom of this post!
Hope you all are well! Enjoy yr week and remember.....it's a blessing to be alive and you can see the fingerprints of our Creator all around you!
Cheers

eina!

now this post will be more interesting for people who is into the whole gym/training kinda thing. the gyming here is very different the i'm used to and we've been using this big wooden boxes to do plyometric jumps on, they start at 500mm,750mm,1m,1.25m and i'm still on the 1m but it's improving steadily and hopefully i'll be on the 1.25m one shortly, well that's what i thought until this morning. we had a tough, long, hard fitness session last nite and my legs were really buggered, i was in bed by 9pm sleeping, ja, get home, protein shake and in bed, so this morning my legs were still a bit jelly! now for those who know, the 2nd superset of excercises we do here, you do a 3-in-1 excercise--> power clean, then front squad then jerk/push press and after that you have to go do 3 jumps on the boxes . my legs were still so tired and when i jumped i didnt reach the top of the wooden box and my shins took the knock on the side edge of this wooden box, man was that sore hey! in the pics it just look a few scratch marks but i can tell you that it was VERY sore when it happened. so i had to swallow my pride and use the 750mm box again. at least now i feel part of the team cause of the 28 guys about 18 had their front skin taken off their legs, it's a common sight at practise, two red marks on the front of your leg.
cheers!

Bbbbrrrrrr......!!

Okay, so it's finally getting colder here in NZ and i can tell you it's absolutely freezing cold. Hope you can see the thick layer of frost on my car. Last night after training (at bout 8pm) there were alreay some frost partially on the windows and this morning everything were completly frosted. The door handle, all the windows and even my elec windows didnt wanne go down when i pushed the button, thats how cold it was here!

Now the big news...!! Our head coach, charlie mcallister resigned/was fired last week over some issues (stuff that happened earlier this year and that was still ongoing). It was kinda weird being in the same situation two years in a row, last year when kevin putt was fired it was almost the same, then you see him at training and the next session you dont. We've got a guy from the hurricanes helping out now for the next few weeks till NPC starts, his name is Jonno Philips and he is the Canes' skills coach. The last 2 training sessions we were working on our ground attack skills and i must be totally honest....it was mind blowing, i now understand why the kiwi's is just so much better and their rugby. I mean, the things we worked on was just so technical and in the end it makes a big difference if you gonna stay on the same level as a player all your life or if you gonna grow as a player and just keep on adding to your skills arsenal.(sorry, i dunno how to express myself in the way that i feel now and in english! :) ) I am really looking forward to the next couple of weeks and just absorbing all the info as we train!

So the other big news, (it was quite an exciting last few days ) is that the church i'm at now is just so great, it's so alive for God and i wish there were more than just one sunday in a week. This past sunday the service was 2 hours long, but the amazing thing is that you never ever look on your watch and think, ok when is this over?! no, you so invloved in the praise and worship and the actual sermon (dunno if that's the right english word, "preek" is the afrikaans word) is just something that's so applicable to your everyday life. At the end you wanne stay for more!this friday a guy from australia is coming to speak and i were told he is very good, am really looking forward to it.

So Joggies wife, Simone, is a very good cook (trust me, i stayed with them my first week here) and she baked us this choc cake the other w-end. it was sooooo delicious and the icing was just.... it was nice!! here is a pic to show the thick icing!

i've got my own laptop now (things are really so much cheaper here) and my broadband is finally up and running so hopefully there will be more updates regulary!

You all have a good week!

PS. For those who wants to leave a comment at the bottom of this post here goes: click on "0 comments" then on your right you register on blogger.com to get a username and then you can leave a comment by using your username. even chantel got this so common guys! :)

Am just joking my love! :)

Kava and gigantic windmills....

Helllloooooo everybody!
okay, well in the last post i left a little clue on what in this post will be and here it is.....kava. it is a traditional fijian drink made from the roots of a plant ( dunno what plant) and it tastes and looks like mud! it's non-alcoholic and it's not a drug or anything, but it tastes awfull! in the pic you can see it being prepared and it doesnt look good does it? i had like 3 glasses of it and it was okay, but i dont know if i'll include that in my list of things to drink! if you want more info on the plant itself just google it.
on saturday our club played in another town just outside palmie and it was close to the windmill farms here in manawatu, so i decided to go have a look at this huge windmills, and was it something to see! it is absolutely ernomous! apperently there is a place on the other side of palmie where you can go on a trail up the mountain and go like stand next to one of the things. would really like to do that on a off w-end. on top of the windmill there is a computer that capture the windspeed and -direction and it rotates the blades so there will be maximum usage of the wind.
i got my own landline installed today but now the broadband will only be activated next week. it's so frustrated cause i wanne start surfing and post more pics but i'll have to wait a few more days!
congrats to all my buddies back in durban that made the sharks training currie cup squad, rudi and robbie i know off, dunno if there is more players in but i only know of those 2! well done and i hope we'll play each other in next year's super 14! ha ha! :)
another update will follow by the w-end or maybe early next week!
i still cant play because of my ribs but it's getting better and i started running without too much pain!
you all have a good w-end and dont forget to attend church on sunday!
sweet!

Busted rib and.......

plenty of long stud marks all over my body, that's what i ended up with after our game against Hawke's Bay on wednesday. I wasn't meant to start the game but the blindside flanker pulled out after the club games on saturday so i started at 6 flank. we played against the division 2 league winners of last year with 2 former all blacks in their side, nathan mauger(centre) and danny lee(halfback). It was only a pre-season game and they had 2 teams for the day, a first half team and a second half team,we only had a team of 26 players. we won the first half when we played against their best team(with the 2 AB's in it) and i really think this season is going to be better than everyone initialy thought. our fitness/gym guy, a rugby league trainer, is doing very well to get us into top condition and the gym and fitness sessions is just something else i'm not used to.
ok, so about the title of this post is a busted rib and i'm not lying to you, it's very sore!!!!!!!! those of you like me, that dont know the anatomy of the body that well, at the bottom of your ribcage you have 2 lose ribs they call the "floating ribs" and they think i busted the bottom one. I cant breathe properly and moving comfortably is a problem. i'm booked off for the next 10 days, no training and i cant even go play golf!
one of the next posts will be about "kava", google it and you will find out more. all i can say is that it tastes like ground and looks like mud water. it's not alcoholic though.
sweet!