Well, it's here at last! We're in the week of the big game and can't wait to get to Edinburgh and set up camp.

But this week is the worst week because we are so much looking forward to arriving up there and getting started.

We don't go until tomorrow so we are just trying to fill in the time. It's a difficult period because you can't train too hard and you can't not do enough. We have to cover everything.

Myself and Robbie (Paul) didn't get much of a confidence boost on Good Friday as we played in the New Zealand side which lost 52-0 at the hands of the Australians.

It was a really hard pill to swallow because before the game we were talking about how we thought we were going to compete. What went on out there on the pitch was not competition. It was just a whitewash.

We started really well and had a good spell but just fell away. Our preparation wasn't good for a lot of reasons but at the end of the day we missed too many tackles as a team.

But I'm over it now - thanks largely to the fact that we have such a big cup final this week, and the preparation at Bradford has been much better than it was over in Australia.

In fact, our preparation at Bradford has been phenomenal all year. The club is very organised and that goes a long way towards keeping the mental side of your game really well tuned.

It's great to know that you're training on good grounds with good equipment and everything's in place so the squad is really focused.

We have the same core of players as last year so we are all settled and everyone knows their role in the team. It has been good to come back into that sort of environment. Collectively we have been so sharp and together.

Also, a few players have come into the side and done really well, such as Paul Deacon, Tevita Vaikona and Justin Brooker.

I also have to take my hat off to the forwards who have been magnificent all year.

I have been involved in a few cup finals before from my time at Wigan but they were totally different to this one.

The game has moved on a lot since then and this Bradford team would probably be a good match for the Wigan team of 1995 and '96 because we play such different games.

Preparations this time around have been similar, although it has been hard for myself and Robbie to recover from flying half-way around the world.

Also, the weather hasn't been great so we haven't been able to get outside and do all the things we wanted to do.

But everyone's spirits are up, and that's a good thing going into cup final week because you usually get one guy who picks up an injury a couple of weeks before the final. All the boys then pull together and want that person to get fit so it's a real disappointment if they don't make the final.

But we have no injury worries at all and the mickey-taking that has been going on has been great.

Everyone's a bit of a character so that will help to keep the team morale high while we are in each other's pockets up in Scotland.

People like Brian McDermott, Jimmy Lowes, Paul Anderson and Brad Mackay are the main culprits - most of them are real practical jokers.

They always compare myself and Robbie to the Chuckle Brothers off television because the players complain that when we are out there on the park it's always 'from me - to you - to me' and we don't pass to anyone else.

Sometimes you only have to open your mouth and the rest of the lads are on top of you making a joke.

The person who takes the most stick has to be Stuart Fielden.

He's such an emotional young guy and he wears his heart on his sleeve, so he thinks a lot of what the boys say is directed at him when it isn't. That gets him really wound up and makes him an easy target for jokes.

There are so many examples but he thinks that everyone picks on him already and if I wrote them all down in this column then I would really be rubbing it in. So I'll save his blushes this once.

One player I will mention is Brad Mackay.

As you may know, Brad's a born-again Christian so when he gets angry he always tries to stop himself from swearing.

In the end he usually ends up saying: "F-f-f-far out, man!"

But the boys have picked up on this now and every time they want to swear they mock him by saying "Far out, man!" in a funny Australian twang.

So with all the antics off the field making for a great mood in the camp we just can't wait to go to Murrayfield and hopefully have the last laugh on Saturday.

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