Now that I have settled in and got some games under my belt I am really excited about our chances this year.

I was expecting a lot from guys such as the Paul brothers and they have certainly delivered the goods.

And I think that we have the best hooker in the British game in James Lowes.

He is playing out of his skin at the moment and when you have got playmakers like that in your side all you need around them is a bit of strike power from the likes of Hudson Smith, Mike Forshaw and myself for it to happen.

I suppose that the person who has impressed me most is Brian McDermott.

His work-rate is incredible - he always makes the hard yards. I am very privileged to play with Brian and Mike who also does a tremendous amount of work.

We have the Challenge Cup game coming up on Sunday and I have already found out what it means to the fans.

The Bulls have been short of a few trophies lately and the Challenge Cup is the first opportunity for us to put that right.

I was watching the Wigan game on TV and the commentators were saying that Wigan were determined to make up for the fact that last year was the first for 15 years or so that they had not won a trophy.

Well, we are upset as well, and this week give us a great opportunity to get one step towards Murrayfield which is our first goal this season.

You know, whoever is responsible for the recruitment of players at this club, whether it is the board of directors or coach Matt Elliott, they are doing a great job.

There are players in other teams who are great players, I thought that Kieron Cunningham was outstanding last Friday - even though I rate Jimmy as a better player I thought that he was the best man in their side.

But we have a great mix of players both in attack and defence and we all seem to chip in.

St Helens never gave up against us. I didn't think that they played particularly well but they never stopped working.

Our defence was tremendous against Saints.

At the end of the game we came away 22 points better than them but the match was a lot closer than that suggests and we had to work hard to get the points.

In saying that, we have been watching the video of Halifax this week and they are a side that never give up.

This week, the way Halifax are playing and the way we are looking at the game, we feel that we will be playing our toughest match.

That is the way we have to approach every fixture or else we could drop our guard.

Friday was unbelievably cold! It wasn't a bad day but the wind chill factor was such that it was really bitter.

It wasn't too bad in the first half but after cooling down at half-time it was really difficult getting your body temperature back up.

After seven or eight minutes I was still shivering.

It's not the coldest I have played in but I don't want to make a habit of it!

I have started to get used to the English game now and the hardest part for me is getting used to the soft pitches.

My game is based on getting around the field, having a high work-rate and doing lots of tackling.

I have found it a little difficult getting round the pitch and doing my tackling but I also have a little footwork and it has helped my attacking play because guys are sliding over. So it's made attacking a bit easier but defence a little harder.

I suppose in summer when the grounds get harder it will be more like Australian football but until then I'll just have to get used to the soft grounds and heavy legs.

The Bulls fans were fantastic at St Helens.

I have never seen anything like it at St George or the other clubs that I have played at where they have passionate fans.

They are just so supportive and so passionate.

They travel to every ground and last week at Saints we had thousands of them all at one end of the ground - it was great to go over and thank them at the end of the game.

They are worth a lot of points to us and we will be playing for them at Halifax on Sunday.

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