Captain Cook, Friday, February 17

HERE we go again. Hardly have I settled in from my recent posting as PT instructor in a nudist colony in San Francisco (those star-jumping sessions – oh boy!) when I find myself ensconced again as conduit between the Florida Road Rugby Colloquium and the great reading public of KwaZulu-Natal.

And what a season stretches ahead. There's the Super 15, to begin next weekend. There's the Six Nations, to resume next weekend. There's the England tour in June. Then there's the Rugby Championship (formerly Tri-Nations), where we need to settle some old scores arising from the World Cup.

Let's look first at England. If there's any truth at all in the scuttlebutt, by the time they get here they could well be under none other than Nico d'Mafiosi d'Machiavelli Malletti, the wily old Sicilian bandit who had been coaching Italy (very successfully, it must be said) and now seems to be floating about rather. That could be interesting – and just when we were beginning to forgive him for the Gary Teichmann debacle.

England have now played two matches in the Six Nations. Everyone deplores the way Scotland somehow contrived to lose a match (at Murrayfield!) that they almost totally controlled. That's quite true, of course. But it does say something about England's tackling, which was ferocious and gave away absolutely nothing. Heyneke Meyer – take note!

Okay, England just scraped home against Italy, but you can't really read too much into a game that's played on snow in an actual blizzard. It always narrows the gap.

Four things stood out in that England-Scotland encounter (and the same was true of Wales-Ireland): superb handling; threequarters taking the ball at pace; superb defence; and correct body posture. When a forward (or anybody else for that matter) takes the ball on the charge, he has his head down and his legs pumping. To stop him is like having to tackle a bushpig.

Too often in New Zealand our big men – Bismarck, his boetie, Schalk Burger and all of them – would break out, running upright and carrying the ball like a kugel's handbag. They got knocked down, mugged; they got robbed of the ball. It doesn't happen when you're in bushpig mode. That's something we have to get into our game. Maybe Heyneke needs to take them to Kruger Park for a weekend.

This weekend it's a lull in both hemispheres. Next weekend the game is on. It's a new era – a new national coach and an influx of new players. Let it roll! We're standing by for the Florida Road feu de joie (the celebratory shooting out of streetlights using catapults fashioned from the ladies' knicker elastic). It might be a new era but some rugby traditions never die.

See you in the Thunder Bar! I've dug out my Ukrainian phrasebook and the gals are rarin' for the new season. In fact I've already made my predictions for the Super 15, the England tour, the Championship and the Currie Cup. Katinka has them safe under her suspender belt. At the appropriate moment, all shall be revealed. Watch this space!

CAPTAIN COOK