THIS week I have been speaking to my best mate who plays for Villeneuve Leopards, who are our opponents in the Silk Cut Challenge Cup.

Laurent Frayssinous told me that he and his teammates want to play this quarter-final tie more than any other game. They would want this match-up even more than the chance to play in the French cup final because it is important to them to gain the experience of playing against a Super League club.

The tie with us on Sunday will be Villeneuve's cup final.

It will be a special game for me as I know well about half of the Villeneuve players, through playing alongside them for France from under 19s level through to the senior team.

I will be treating it as a normal game, like a Super League fixture. Hopefully I will play well and keep my place for the first Super League home game of the season against Hull FC on March 18.

As people know, I went back to France during the close season but I am really glad to be back in Warrington and feel I can still do a job here.

I like the town, the people are friendly and easy to talk to and the fans are really good to us. We had 'more downs than ups' last year but the fans stuck with us and that was very positive for the club.

There is something special about the spirit of Rugby League in England. The fans are really involved in the game and that is really beneficial to the sport.

The Warrington fans are special. Take the Wigan game for example. Warrington fans, with all their noise and colours, made the JJB Stadium seem like their own ground. They did the same there last year and we heard them throughout the 80 minutes.

Last season I played 30-odd games for the club and I was happy with that. It was totally different to being at Canberra in Australia the year before because there I was playing reserve grade. It was still useful for me out in Australia though as I was able to work with a lot of good players.

With Warrington last year I was able to build on that and work alongside players like Allan Langer, Tawera Nikau and Andrew Gee.

Playing first grade each week, like I did last year, prepares you well for the future. The more I play, the more experience I gain and the better I will become.

With all the competition for places at Warrington a player has to be happy to be playing, in whatever position. I have had a few words with Darryl though and I'm going to concentrate on playing front row this year.

As Darryl says to me, we have to be life-long learners. I'm learning and I rate myself as still being pretty young in the game as far as front row forwards go.

Hopefully this year I am going to learn what I can from Andrew Gee, Danny Nutley and Marty Masella, the best and most experienced props at the club. Hopefully I can pick up some good tips from them and do some good things myself in the future.