Collins plays waiting game as injury delays his return

Inspirational Taniwha captain Gus Collins is frustrated to be sitting on the sidelines as the team prepares to start their first pre-season match on Wednesday.
Twice voted as the most valuable player of the Air New Zealand Cup, the wily loose forward will be sorely missed, after struggling to recover from a knock to the head acquired in the Blues' match against the Reds in April.
"It's disappointing for me to virtually have a new team to play with and under new management, and to be unable to go out there and hook into. It is frustrating for me," he said.
Collins is making daily progress toward recovery but still experiences occasional headaches while exercising. So he is resigned to listening to his specialist's advice about his availability for this year's campaign, which starts in earnest with a match against Bay of Plenty on July 31.
Collins, who has played 103 Super Rugby games and is approaching 150 provincial caps, said good management had helped him to have a good run with injury in the past.
"I've been fortunate in the past. The  past three years I've managed to be available for every game in both Super 14 and the Air New Zealand Cup, but now I guess that's caught up with me," he said.
He now faces the prospect of missing the first part of the season - or even all of it, if his neurologist insists.
"You can't rule anything out at the moment. You have to follow the medical staff's lead on things, so at the moment it's day by day for me," he shrugs.
He has been in discussion with Bryce Woodward and the pair will be looking at two or three options for a stand-in captain for Wednesday's opening match against North Harbour in Kaikohe, and the following pre-season match against Counties in Pukekohe on July 24.
The captain will be looking for "experienced" players, like the Super-14 "veterans" Jared Payne, Bronson Murray and Rene Ranger to take an extra leadership role on the field.
"The experience tag comes down a few months each year, so you're now looking to guys who are 25 or 26 for experience. A few years ago it was the 30-year-olds who were experienced," he joked.
Collins said there  were plenty of new faces in the squad from last season, with 16 new signings so far this season.
"There's a lot of new faces but I think the coaching staff have done an outstanding job to get together such a talented squad."
The skipper is adding his input in training and off the field. He will be vital to moulding the team together.
Northland coach Bryce Woodward stated that Collins' absence was "huge".
"Gus will be missed primarily from a leadership point of view on the field but, having said that, with Roy Griffin's injury and Joel McKenty tweaking a hamstring [in training], suddenly we're down on our loose forward stocks," he said.
With possible demotion from the Air New Zealand Cup competition still hanging over Northland, the skipper is focused on Northland making the quarterfinals in this year's competition.
"There's talk of them dropping four teams and, while ... no one's sure about the criteria how they're going to determine who drops down, I suspect that it will done on performance alone and the bottom four teams will drop," Collins said.
While that may be controversial, Collins believes there is no other way around the issue.
"It will be risky for the NZRU to do that with Auckland and NH in the bottom four last year, but that makes our job clear ... we need to perform and uphold our expectations of being in the top-eight and we believe that's achievable," he said.