Apologies for the break in service folks but at least we're back for 2010 and ready to enjoy what should be a fascinating denouement to the Championship season.

Assuming anyone gets round to playing some rugby.

And at that point I'd just like to place on record just how much I'm looking forward to previewing matches for a second - and in the case of Bees and Rotherham a third - time.

Let's start the first TWP of the year with a game of pretend. Let's imagine for a while some games will be played this weekend.

It's not often I am happy to watch rugby in 95 per cent empty football stadiums but I can honestly say I'll be delighted to be at the Ricoh Arena this evening.

If I really get a taste for it I could find myself at Reading FC's Mad Stad tomorrow and the Memorial Stadium, home to Bristol Rovers, on Sunday.

I wonder if anyone's ever become a member of The 92 Club without watching a game of football.

But back to Coventry. Just another week down the Butts really, unpaid tax bill, administration (no, liquidation, no neither (Who knows?)), unpaid players and all the rest. How do they fill their time over there?

Well they'll fill this evening beginning the second half of their Championship campaign and hoping they'll be around to finish it.

Moseley will be looking to reverse the 5-6 win-loss ratio from the opening section and in doing so have a crack at winning the promotion play offs.

And Bees, it's a bit early in the year for green shoots you know, will look forward to playing and then not playing Bristol again in a season with more twists and turns than a Dan Brown rewrite of a Tolstoy classic.

Meanwhile Stour continue to power their way through the most expensively assembled packs in the community game - that'll sting a few down at Stourton Park. At least they do so in a proper rugby club.

Anyway back to the football grounds, wonder if we'll see much kicking this weekend?

Another three-pronged instalment of Friday night rugby. Remember the days when team's used to play on Saturdays?

Still that's the price we pay for blanket television coverage of the sport. When the cameras come calling rugby lifts it skirt and moves the kick-off. What's that you say? There are no games being broadcast live? Some mistake surely.

Sadly not, those who want to see how Coventry and Heriot's get on or how Moseley fair with Ulster must actually turn up in person. Quite right too, says I.

Whether I'm still saying that this evening is another matter. The Worcester-Saracens match has all the entertainment potential of a three-hour Spot the Ball in the Air competition.

Perhaps the posh seats in the West Stand should be fitted with recliners to negate the risk of their inhabitants sustaining a strained neck and affording them the opportunity to drop off in comfort.

And given the fact matches involving Heriot's in this competition average just five points - that might be one to miss too.

At least there's defence-free Moseley to inject a few tries into proceedings.

Let's hope they wear their famous Red and Black tonight because they didn't want to get their nice white jerseys dirty last Friday night.

And what of Bees-Cardiff? I'm sure there'll be some tries in that one!

No Friday night rugby for years and then three on one evening. Someone somewhere is missing the point about how to attract a different clientele.

The plan only works folks if none of your competitors are doing the same thing.

As it is any floating voter living in Bromsgrove would be in the intersection of an oval ball Venn diagram not knowing whether to spend their evening in Coventry, Moseley or Worcester.

Me? Me and my new coat are up Chillesley Common watching Moseley and London Welsh play each other for the fourth time in eight months.

But that's the beauty of the British and Irish Cup, some get Munster at home - a genuinely exciting prospect - and others....well, don't.

And let's be honest, who knows what's going to happen? How good are Ulster A, how bad are Heriot's FP reserves? Do Bees and Moseley have any fringe players?

Nevertheless, here goes...

Apologies for another break in service, brought about by a dire need to spend some time with the nearest and dearest, hopefully the transmission will continue unbroken for the foreseeable.

Looking back at my last entry, entitled 'Time to walk the talk' it is clear most of the region's sides were only capable to limp the whimp(er).

Moseley failed to beat London Welsh, Harlequins won at Worcester and Stour were thrashed at Wharfedale.

But all that is in the dim and distant past. Last Saturday was marked by Boo-Gate - did they didn't they? - an appalling Worcester performance and the weekly Manchester Try Fest at Stourton Park.

But Round Nine will go down as The Chip, with the nation's cameras and the entire Bristol defence trained on him and his goal-line, Joey Carlisle impudently chipped his way out of a hole and took his Coventry team 70m downfield.

They say the border between genius and madness is a thin one and - with both feet just on the wrong side of the divide - here are this week's predictions.

Thankfully last week's blow outs didn't materialise as Bees grabbed Exeter's coat-tails to emerge with some self respect and Mose shut down both Bristol and themselves.

This weekend, with the exception of Bees - who will struggle at Cornish Pirates - all of the West Midlands' teams have matches they need to win if they are to achieve their season's ambitions.

If Sixways is to become the fortress Mike Ruddock desires, Quins must be dispatched.

If Coventry are to finish in the top eight of the Championship, Plymouth at home should be a banker and if Moseley are to maintain their current form London Welsh have to considered as the most vulnerable of the powerhouses.

And incredibly Stour go looking to win a sixth straight fixture at Wharfedale.

Excuse the temporary loss of service folks, illness - namely the most virulent strain of flu known to humankind - prevented me from raising a single digit in the direction of my keyboard last week.

Clearly I would have predicted all the results correctly and trust you have enough faith in my crystal ball gazing ability to grant me a perfect five from five.

No? It's a fair cop.

I honestly expected Worcester to beat Montpellier and Plymouth to leave Moseley with four points and I can't claim with a clear conscience I'd have backed Coventry to win at Doncaster.

A good week to be ill then, you might say.

Let's see what happens this weekend...

Now what to write about this week? No, can't think of anything. Midlands rugby has been a bit stagnant of late.
What we really need is a good old Coventry story. Surely the club that put the 'Co' in controversy can come up with something.
Or perhaps there's a tale brewing down Sharmans Cross way, it's been a bit on the quiet side recently.
But that were the case.
Moseley and Worcester are ploughing on enjoying the novelty of mid-table mediocrity, models of consistency as the oval ball sands shift around them.
Down the road Bees are rarely out of the headlines or off the messageboards and Cov have found themselves a perfect storm to weather.
What to write about indeed.
So in the light of both issues I'll offer a few unrelated observations, sit back and wait for my own perfect storm.

Some intriguing fixtures this week with the first Championship local derby between Coventry and Moseley and a reshuffled Worcester side going to Leicester.

And of course there could be the last ever game for the current Bees vintage, unless they can unravel their financial tangle that has dragged them to the precipice.

Whilst not wishing to blow my own trumpet, I think I'm due a surreptitious little 'toot' following a 100 per cent return from last week that included correct predictions for Moseley's win over Doncaster and Worcester's over Sale.

That's 14 out of 15 so far this season. OK trumpet down.

And this week...

Hurrah. I got my first one bang on last week. The tea-leaves informed me Exeter would leave Butts Park with a two-try advantage and so they did.

Boo. Optimism overcame me and my first wrong prediction was made for the Wasps-Worcester clash. If only Mike Ruddock hadn't told his men to launch an aerial bombardment it might have been a different story.

From now on, no favouring the Midlands sides.

Five more matches this weekend and perhaps the least clear cut set of matches. Worcester could win or lose at home to Sale, as could Moseley with Doncaster and possibly even Coventry at Cornish Pirates.