It's that time of year when instead of gumboots, Uncle Wal' puts on his old rugby jersey and trainers as the sun comes up for early season training.

His waistline is as floppy and flabby as one of Aunt Dolly's hot buttered pikelets, but there's only one way to make the All Blacks, or, in his case a starting position in the Raupo team.

So plodding through the dewy grass in sodden sneakers he goes. The aim is to go along the goat track, across the paddock with the waist high bullrushes, along the windbreak, up blackberry gully as far as the lone burnt pine at the top of the hill.

Or maybe not. Gotta ease into it eh Uncle Wal'.