Saturday and Sunday April 13 ... and a pause for some gratitude.

Push over tries bring a tear to every prop's eye.

So ... this was a great weekend if you are a rugby player. On Friday, my day started with a 6am kick off of my Queensland Reds. They lost, but the part of the game I saw featured the Reds scoring a push over try.

Saturday was the first rugby day for 2014. I had to miss a bit of the training session my club was running, due to a swimming event my kids had to go to, but I made it for the full contact scrimmage.

I had fun, was around the pitch and secured ball; which, of course is what people playing prop are supposed to do. I did make a few breaks and had a couple of nice assists on some tries. All in all a productive session and I made myself look good. I needed a rather long stretch after and got to a players meeting on time and also spent that time wisely. I did get rushed out the door to come home and didn't stop for gas, though.

Why make that point? Well, my vehicle ran out of gas just as I got to my driveway. I had to push it onto my drive way. Which I'm pleased to say I could do after playing in a game.

Thanks, Glynn!

Sunday was my 44th birthday. I got a fair number of well wishes both in person at 7am from my family and from a lot of people on social media I haven't seen for a number of years. To no surprise to anyone, I got to play in a rugby game today. I "only" got in for a few sets, all told I think I played 25 minutes of an 80 minute game. To be honest, I was good with that. The team on which I played had a lot of subs - nearly an entire second side - and so, I was good with being patient and trying to help where I could. I think I was the oldest player on the sidelines and one of the handful who had also played the day before.

In short, we won and I enjoyed being a part of the game. I'm not saying we won because of me, however. I'm not that vain. We won because we had good fit players, who played as a team and a good support staff in place. I was grateful to be a part of it.

It didn't hurt that I knew players on both sides and had coached a few team mates as u16's and u20's, too.

I'm sorry to say that I had to sprint away after the game and help move my kids around from swimming to home. But, that is all part of my next idea.

I wanted to take a moment and express just how much fun this weekend was. I'm not sure about how many people get to play rugby. I'm not sure about how many people get to turn 44. I'm really not sure about how many people get to be a dad, a fitness nut and make enough money from a job they enjoy in order to be able to be fit, relax on a weekend and play rugby twice. That number of people has to be kind of small. And ... I'm one of them.

I can't say I made a huge impact in either game, but I'm happy that I was an integral part of both. I made passes. I ran with ball in hand. Players had to make an effort to tackle me and make sure that I didn't make them look silly. In short, I had fun today ... and if life teaches me nothing else ... that is a rarity. For that reason alone, I'm really grateful for the young men with whom I played rugby this weekend. I'm also grateful for my family who is patient enough with me to let me be fit, be happy and let me spend this weekend being a rugby player.

Thanks.