Finally the league is about to get underway and the players are looking forward to the challenge before them. Following a somewhat disrupted pre-season the teams are coming to grips with the new lineout calls and playing patterns. The last 10 weeks have been a blur and the players have completed a large component of strength and power training in the gym. Along with this they have also been developing their skills especially passing and ball handling. We have also had a real focus on improving our defence and I am confident that our defensive integrity will be quite good from the start of the season. I am a great believer that good defence is an excellent platform to attack from and we know too well how frustrating it is not to be able to score points against good defensive teams.

We have been very particular on our phase defence and one on one defensive tracking which is paramount to defensive success and a core skill which is often neglected at all levels of the game. If you don't track your player well you can be in a position that enable you to perform a positive tackle. As mentioned earlier, the team has been working hard on the phase defence and I feel this will be critical to our success this season. Good teams can uphold phase defence for 3-5 phases but great teams can uphold the phase defence for 10+ phases and that is where we want to be if we are to be the best this year.

There are some young faces in the starting side against Navy on Friday evening and I feel they will warrant their selections via strong performances. In particular the young tyro's Karthelis, Hasitha and Anuja in the forwards are going to be enjoyable to watch. In the backs the young talents such as Rinaz and Sherrif will have their chance to perform well and stake claims for permanent positions. We must not take Navy to be an easy beat team as there is good mail that the team is packing more punch this year and if they are not given the respect that all opponents deserve they will bite you and we don't want to give them the opportunity to do so.

I am looking forward to watching the players in action and in particular I will be interested to see how the B's players perform as there is a lot of competition for positions and they all want to play in the Top League. Many good performances will create a selection headache but that will be a good problem to have and I wish all the players the very best for the upcoming season.

To all off our supporters, we hope you can turn out in numbers at Welisara on Friday evening to cheer us on, we look forward to your support this season