And what a begining it was....!!!

Hello everybody!!
I write this post as i'm sitting in pain infront of my computer! it feels like a train ran over me, not once but twice and came back for a third time! :)
We lost against auckland yesterday 41-10, but the scoreline is not a real indication of how things went. It was a tough encounter and both teams played good rugby. At the end of the day it all came down to experience i would say. We had as much, if not more, scoring opportunities, but wrong decision making at crucial times cost us at the end. I was just happy that we proved the rugby public in NZ wrong. 99% of the people said that we are not good enough to play at this level and that the team are gonna recieve a big hiding from the NPC Champions of last year. We proved them wrong!
We have a bye this coming w-end and the following w-end we off to Blenheim, on the South Island. We play against a new team in the competition. It's 2 provinces, that played in the 2nd div last year, that melted together, so its gonna be a difficult one, but its all bout the process and not the end result. As long as we improve each week, i see us winnning the competition in 2008!
Not much news otherwise!
Hope you all have a blessed week!
Those who know me, let me hear from you, it's getting lonely on the FAR side of the earth!

A New Begining......

The above heading for this post is part of the new Air New Zealand Cup slogan and for a part of me it's also a new begining. It was quite a journey to get here at this specific stage in my life and alot of sacrifices were made along the way. I trust the Lord that this will be all for a better "me" and I walk this next part of the journey with absolute faith in Him.
The team for this saturday will only be announced on thursday, so untill then it's training hard and putting it all in. I am looking forward to competing against the best there is in NZ and just going out and doing all the new stuff i've learned!
So this past w-end i went down to go watch the Boks play the All Blacks at the Cake Tin in Wellington. Quite a few of my friends played for the Boks and i spent some time with them after the game and it was good to catch up on some news from home. The sunday a few of us went along the harbour and had lunch together and after that myself, meyer and albert went to the Te Papa Museum. It's one of the bigger museums i've seen in my life and it was nice just walking through and having a look at some of the stuff! There was also an exclusive exhibition of "The Lord Of The Rings" movie. They showed all the clothes and stuff that were used in the movie and also videos of how the produced some of the parts of the film. It was very interesting and something different, it's a pity no photo's were allowed to be taken, although there was a sneaky photographer in our midst that got to take one, wont mention any names though, what happened in the museum, stays in the museum! :) After the trip through the museum, us 3 played some cards at a coffee shop inside the museum while having a coffee and chocolate brownie! Very relaxing and just something different than the usual.

My sincere apologies for not posting some news recently, but time management was crucial the last 10 days and i just couldnt spent that much time infront of the computer when i needed some sleep and recovery time badly! Hope the pictures make up for it all!

Just something that i got from a good friend of mine is the following:
It took God a week to create the earth, sun, stars, jupiter, mars, etc.
God is still working on you and me. How much more special must we be if He has already worked our whole life on us and will never stop working on us and our perfection!
You all have a blessed week!

Hawke's Bay here we come!

I made the team for the Hawke's Bay game this Friday and I am really relieved that the hard work has paid off and I'm gratefull for this blessing and opportunity!! There is a couple of our players not playing due to the "flu" going the rounds, but only the backs were affected by the sickness, you know the forwards are a bit "harder" than the backs! :)
We've had another hard training week behind us and i think they trying to get us as tired possible for our game, so that we can play and make decisions while we tired and mentally drained. Dont know if that makes sense but it's difficult to explain!
Otherwise there aint any new exciting news from Palmy, except that this training in the mud isnt fun anymore!! After every training i spent an additional 5-10min in the shower, scrubbing the mud off my boots and clothes, otherwise it stains! I'm still learning alot from our coaching staff, which is a good thing, and on tuesday we going down to wellington for a scrum session with mike cron, he's a all black scrum guru, so am looking forward to that too!
I'm gonna take my camera with tomorrow and if there's time and something to take photo's of, i will!
Have a good w-end and GO BOKKE!!!

3 weeks and counting!

It's 3 weeks till our first game in the NPC, or the Air New Zealand Cup, and i cant wait for it to start! We dont know the final squad yet, but this coming friday we play against Hawke's Bay, which is also our last pre-season game, so i would think that the team playing will be the one he would like to use in the first game against Auckland, giving that the team perform. nothing I can do untill then, except training hard and giving it my best shot!

We've had another long and tough week on the training pitch and yesterday finished the week off with an 2 and a half hour training session and 30min of swimming afterwards. They wanted the training to be as identical to an NPC games as possible and it was a combination of fitness, contact drills and defense for the duration of training. Lots of fun down under i tell you!
This morning we had an extra optional "stairs session" where you climb 84 stairs up and down every 2 minutes, we did 25 sets, and after yesterday the legs were quite heavy, but as a good friend of mine once told me: "There is never a crowd on the extra mile" , so even if you tired, no one but you will know how much "extra" you've put in!

We have tomorrow off and i need to do some house chores, analytical work at the union about our last game and then i will treat myself to the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

You all have a good and blessed week and remember John 10:10 "...Jesus came so that we can have life and life in abundance!"

Cellphone vs Bible

I got the following from a friend of mine.....makes you think!

CELLPHONE VS BIBLE

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we flipped through it several times a day?

What if we used it to receive messages?

What if we treated it like we couldnt live without it?

What if we gave it to kids as gifts?

What if we used it as we traveled?

What if we used it in case of an emergency?

What if we upgraded it to get the latest version?
This is something to make you go...hmmm…where is my Bible?

Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phones, we dont ever have to worry about our Bibles being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill!

Wet and muddy!

Now this doesnt look nearly as bad as it actually was! The fields are flooded with water although the one we trained on tonight was only partially flooded. It was still muddy and very wet, but it's al part of the experience! And the other pic was the malva pudding i made for cellgroup last week! Life is good down under and i'm enjoying every moment of it. wish my other half was here, but she'll join me next year if all goes well! NPC squad only announced next week, so another week of hard work and putting in the extra effort.

So what I'm used to is that when it pours down with rain, training either gets canceled or postponed. This morning we had some testing done on the athletics track in rain that were pouring down. We did a 60m sprint, rest 10min, 400m sprint, rest 10min and finished off with a 1500m. I was pretty stuffed after that and my legs still feel tired and lame, but nothing worth it's gold comes easy, so there's no complaining here!
It looks like the rain's gonna be here the whole week, so mentally i'm preparing myself for some wet training sessions, muddy clothes and a lot of washing this week!
I am still on the lookout for pictures to post on the blog. Tomorrow we have our official launch of the NPC Campaign with the name "Turbos" being used for the first time. Exciting! Some players will receive their new Manawatu Blazers, so something to look forward to. There's a few of us that wont be receiving any, cause you have to play 14 games for manawatu before you get your own blazer. Something to work for! In NZ, "old-school" stuff is still playing a huge part in the rugby culture. Like on friday, after our plane trip up to auckland, the whole team stayed seated in the aircraft and waited for all the other passengers to disembark, before we got out. Just little things that at the end makes a huge difference i think. I'm just enjoying myself at the moment, getting to know the "world"!!
So i bet you've been wondering what the picture is all about?! Haha! I downloaded some stuff from NASA and this is my laptop's desktop background! Isnt that a great picture? What an awesome God we serve! He is just SO much bigger than any of us! (by the way,that is a pic of a hurricane as seen from space!)

I never learn....

This past w-end was the second time that I forgot to take my camera with whenever i leave Palmy! Our game was in a town called, Whangarei, and it's 2 hours drive north of Auckland. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and every thing was nice and green. At some parts the highway was next to the coast and there is some nice beaches along the way! I can kick myself for not being a proper tourist and taking some nice pic's for my web-blog! My sincere apologies to you all for yet another pictureless post.....I will make this up to you all!
So we played against Northlands, they a pretty good side, finishes each year in the middle of the NPC log, so they not the worst team, but not Top4 yet. We did pretty well considering the things that has happened the last 2 weeks and the amount of training we did the last week. We were leading 13-0 for the best part of the game. We really played very good structured rugby the first half and blew them off their feet. 10min into the 2nd half they brought on first-five, dave hollwell, and he outplayed us as an individual. He picked up the tempo of the game and we never had enough gas in the tank to last the full 80min. They scored their 27points in the last 30min, managing to beat us 27-13. I was pretty happy with my game except for the intercept pass i threw that lead to one of their tries, but that's life hey....i made a good clearance kick,under pressure, from inside our goal area too, so i'm happy with my all-round play! :)
This wednesday the NPC squad will be announced, so it's hard work till then, but it's worth every drop of sweat on the training pitch!
For all you soccer fans...sorry bout england and brazil, but there's 2 reasons i'm happy they not gonna win this year's world cup 1-> brazil have won the trophy more times than any other nation so it's just fair that someone else win's it and 2-> david beckham.
Cant wait for church tonight, we are busy with a theme "Kingdom Atmosphere" and tonight will be part 3. It's just so amazing how everything in your life can change, once you have that peace in your heart!
A BIG congrats to robbie harris who made his currie cup debut for the sharks this w-end! Well done superstar!! Hope there's many more to come!
Have an excellent week and carpe diem!