Focus starting to narrow with the big kick-off now only a week away

I will be honest before and after games, as is my way, and would like to hear feedback from readers to the column, preferably with contacts so that we can get back to you and have good discussions.

Obviously, the primary focus is on being successful on the field in the World Cup, but you probably don’t realise just how uplifting it is to know there are a lot of people back home backing you and I’d like to thank all readers for their support.

The build-up has begun and while we are enjoying a bit of sunshine in Australia’s Sanctuary Cove you do not have to delve far into the minds of the players and coaches to realise that the World Cup and all of its excitement and pressures are there.

Everything changed after the squad announcement in Edinburgh. The desire to push yourself in training and win selection for the warm-up games, then recover and keep the fingers crossed waiting for the announcement, and all that nervous energy evaporated once the announcement was over with and we could start to turn our attention to the World Cup.

It is difficult to understate how much pressure there is around that selection for players. It doesn’t matter how good you think you have done, how close you think you might be to the squads, the 22 or starting team, you just know all the dreams can go in one announcement. Just like that, gone. I feel for the guys left behind, but we also owe it to them to make our mark out here and prove that we have the squad capable of doing something special in a World Cup.

Since we arrived in Australia the focus has begun to narrow. That’s what happens in the build-up to games. We start to think about our roles more specifically, about the game-plan, the set-piece, the attacking moves, tightening the defensive patterns and quality of tackling, handling, kicking, whatever. It is all beginning to narrow now.

But, at the same time, it is important that players do not become too obsessed with the minutiae of every minute of the day or they’d go mental. So, the management have been really good at encouraging the boys to work hard in training, but then relax for a few hours each day.

Some boys have gone to play golf, some went to a water park yesterday and others had a surfing lesson. I took a walk into Surfer’s Paradise, had a coffee with some boys and then went for a swim, which was a pleasant change from training at home. Myself and Nick de Luca were in the water for an hour or so, body-surfing they call it.

Some of the boys can actually surf, like Moray Low. They probably have surfing on the curriculum in the north-east although I reckon his weight was holding the board down on the sea-bed and it just looked like he was surfing!

We have a great training facility here where they have transformed a golf driving range into a rugby park for us, and it is a big help. We came to Australia because we wanted to be at southern-hemisphere time throughout our build-up to the games in New Zealand, but at the same time with all the hype going on in New Zealand I think it’s good that we’re able to train well away from the media and public interest.

There are a few squads training here and we met up with the Canadians for a training session yesterday, which was great. We didn’t play a full-on game, but did some live stuff, some scrums and lineouts, which lifted the training intensity up another notch.

It was definitely a good exercise and it was great to meet up with some boys we know well – Ander Monro, DTH van der Merwe and Chauncey O’Toole – and they said their squad benefited from the joint session too.

Next week is where the screw will begin to tighten again. Match week. The match heads will come on and the competition for places will step up again. This is a very competitive squad and everyone in the 30 believes they should start against Romania.

We don’t know what the coaches’ plans are yet, in terms of who will start against Romania and what changes they might make for the Georgia game, but it’s harder to impress sitting watching so everyone wants the jersey next week.

There has been a bit of fun with guys getting used to Skype and trying to call home when the children are awake, and sometimes getting it right. My own daughter, Kate, got quite upset when I left and couldn’t settle for the first few days I was away, which is tough. A lot of the boys have wives and children now and although you are here to do a job, obviously you think about them a lot.

We are also looking forward to the STV documentary, where they filmed us through the summer, which goes out on Tuesday night. That should give you some insight into what this is all about and what we’ve been through. We’re hoping to see it, but I’m not actually sure I want to relive some of those brutal sprint sessions.

But this is it. Being a professional sportsman is an incredible honour and being asked to play for and captain your country in a World Cup just amazing.

But what does it mean if you don’t win and aren’t successful? I missed the last World Cup and I’ll be 34 at the next one, so while Nathan [Hines] has done superbly well to play to 34 I don’t know if I’ll still be at this level in four years’ time.

And that is the message right through this squad. This might be the only chance you get to enjoy World Cup success. Right through the skills training we’re doing, the fitness and weights, the pressure is there to improve, make yourself the best you can be to have a chance of starting and then winning.

You look at the work that Chris Cusiter and Euan Murray have put in to get fit and are now training incredibly – two brilliant pros whose work ethic could not be doubted – and you see how much this means to everyone.

We might be in Australia, but we feel the World Cup coming and so no-one is ever totally relaxed. When we arrive in Invercargill next Wednesday I expect to walk into fever pitch and personally it is something I have been looking forward to for some time.