WELCOME to a new season with the Leeds Tykes.

We have already played one month of the season and currently lie in third place in National Division One.

We have recruited well in the close season and we are looking to challenge again this year and hopefully go one better than last season, when we finished runners-up to Rotherham.

We have recruited well over the summer with proven internationals joining us at Headingley.

The first to arrive was Steve Bachop, Steve is a former New Zealand All Black and is combining his player duties with helping Phil Davies, our Director of Rugby, with coaching the Backs.

Australian World Cup winner Dan Crowley, who has been with us for nearly a month now, has joined me in the front row. Dan has played at the highest level both with Australia and the Queensland Reds in the Super 12 competition.

Our latest recruit, who only arrived this week, is Tony Stanger.

Tony's probably most famous for his try for Scotland against England that won the Grand Slam for Scotland in 1990. He has been playing France for the past two years and will give us even more attacking options.

This week we travel to Manchester and we will need to put in a good performance so that we can keep up with the early pacesetters, Worcester and Exeter.

This season we have a new bonus points system in place, which basically encourages teams to be more attacking because you can gain a bonus point for scoring four or more tries. I hope to see many of you at Headingley over the course of the season, our next home game is on October 14 when we take on Bedford, kick off 2.30pm.