SUPER 14 - Final countdown - 100 games

JUSTIN COLLINS may be on the verge of bringing up his Super-14 ton of appearances but don't expect to see the Blues' blindside flanker with too much bench time against the Bulls in Pretoria, come Sunday morning.
Collins started his 2009 campaign by playing the entire 80 minutes of the victory over the Western Force in Perth and said he would prefer to continue on in the same vein again this week.
"It seems to be that the older I get, the more minutes I play in this competition," Collins said.
The Kamo player, who turns 35 in April, put in an enormous second-half effort during the opening match, showing anyone who thinks he's past it the error of their ways.
"I particularly enjoy the last 30 minutes of a game, it gives you a bloody good challenge that I really enjoy. If anything, I'd rather play the second half of the game than the first half, because it always seems to be a whole lot more competitive and interesting," he said.
If Collins gets through super-rugby match number 99 against the Bulls on Sunday, he will bring up his ton against the Stormers in Cape Town next weekend and join a select band of players who have registered 100 games.
Collins debuted at Albany Stadium in 1998, for the Chiefs as they beat the Crusaders 25-23.
A fair bit has changed since he started his career. For one thing, back then Northland was in the Chiefs' region and secondly, the Crusaders were considered the "easy-beats" of the competition.
It is something of a surprise for "Gus" to near the benchmark of 100 games.
"Honestly, it's not something you aim for, nor do you think will ever happen. In professional rugby these days you play year to year and then there is only 12, now 14 games a year you can play, so you're not thinking of 100, that's for sure," he said.
His role in the Blues now is as one of the team's elder statesmen along with Keven Mealamu, who can also expect to reach his 100th super rugby appearance later in the season.
"My number-one goal is for the Blues to win, and I almost these days have a foot in both camps, like I'm a player obviously, which is number-one thing, but I feel like I've got half a foot in the management camp as well," Collins said.
"That gives me the goal to win but also a goal for the team to perform well, and being a senior player means we help out with day-to-day decisions and management are keen to get our point of view and get us to help direct the team," he said.
The win in Perth has given the Blues the opportunity to win more points in a very tough start to the season.
"Any game you play in professional footy is tough and to have brand new management and a new team, to win an away game in Perth is a big bonus for us. Putting five points in the bank has made things easier moving into this week - with two bloody hard games ahead of us - it has enabled us to relax a bit and hopefully play our own game. That might have been harder had we actually lost our first game."
The team has had a fairly light start to their week of training after recovering from the physical Perth match as well as getting over the flight to Africa and getting used to the time changes. Despite the build-up, Collins is optimistic about the team's chances against the Bulls, who are also coming off a win in the opening round - a 33-20 win over the Reds.
"It's a big game at Loftus for sure, they'll fill the stadium and they're a parochial type of crowd," he said.
"We're expecting them to play a more forward-orientated game than against the Australians with a big kicking game, so we'll have to adjust. There's a few mongrels in that Bulls pack and they'll be looking to try and intimidate us but we'll be sure not to let that happen."
Collins said the referees didn't have the same impact on the competition that they had in the first round last year, when there were several rules changes, but he said the jury is still out about the competition no longer using neutral referees.
"I think it's okay although it makes me a tad nervous. It was okay last week when we had Bryce Lawrence looking after us but this week we've got a South African referee for the match against the Bulls, not that that's dodgy at all ... if we play good enough so we cut our mistakes down, then the referee can't have that big an influence on the game," he said.