What A cold, wet, lousy day it was at Huddersfield. Thank goodness we play Rugby League in summer now! Seriously it was horrible playing in the cold and the rain and I can't understand anyone wanting to switch back to winter.

It was quite a hard game for us early on and I was delighted with the end result and how we finished the game. It will be a different task for us this week against Castleford. They are a quality side and they always give us a hard game. We will have to prepare right in every department and if we do that then we will win.

I thought Henry Paul was in tremendous form at the McAlpine and so was my mate 'Longshanks' McDermott. That was when he wasn't getting in the way, which he seems to do most of the time! He had a great game though and he is playing for most of the 80 minutes. He really takes us forward and that inspires the rest of the team.

A few people have asked me about the fitness and medical side of the club and I think we are really lucky. We have a masseur, Martin Clawson, who comes in a couple of times a week and he also works with us on Gameday. He is the son of Terry Clawson who played for many clubs including Bradford

Northern and it is great to be able to have a rub down when the old muscles are aching!

It's usually the same old faces that are on the table, the older ones!

We have a new Physio set up this year and it is really working well. We have quality physios and there are a couple of clinics that we can use. Pete, one of the physios, comes here full time with us when we are training. Mark Fletcher, who is in charge of the whole set up, is available to us at any time so there is no excuse now with injuries and that is very important.

I can't comment on what happens at other clubs but they will have to be very good to be better that what we have here.

Keeping us fit is Mr Enthusiasm, Carl Jennings. Jenno has been great since he joined us. He has done a great job with the weights and you can see by the way we have got fitter just why he is in charge. He can go on a bit, particularly in the dressing room but his enthusiasm make him good to have around.

On Sunday I will be up against Aaron Raper who some people have likened to myself in style. He is a good player and we both like to take control of any situation. He came over from Australia last year and he has done really well. Danny Orr is another who, if he is fit to play, we will have to keep an eye on.

As you can imagine I am not too keen to mention things down at Elland Road.

All I will say is that come the end of the season we will be there or thereabouts!

I can't finish this week without mentioning another old friend of mine Jed Donougher. Jed reads this column on the Internet back in Australia. I know that he really misses us because every time he writes a letter I can see the tearstains on the paper! Unfortunately Jed, there's only me that remembers you!

Just a footnote to say that we'd love to see as many fans as possible here for the Cas game.

The support at Huddersfield was tremendous and it would be a big lift for the players if we could get a big crowd roaring us all the way to Murrayfield.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.