Nearly 19 stone of South African prop arrived at Gloucester this week and when he walked into my tiny office at Kingsholm it was as though the lights had gone out. Christo Bezuidenhout is not only big, he looks even bigger. We have already had to send out for a larger pair of shorts than our kit man normally keeps in stock, and he's also slightly worried that an XXXL jersey might not be big enough.

On Saturday Christo will start on the bench at Bath. Soon we hope to pair him with Phil Vickery, who is within a couple of weeks of being fully fit after an operation on his back. With Olivier Azam back from Montferrand and playing more aggressively than ever, that should give us an all-international front row which weighs in at about 55st and is pretty nimble (all things are relative) about the field. So everything is fine and dandy. We feel we have "bought" well.

Yet even without the internationals waiting in the wings, things have been going swimmingly. Four wins out of four isn't a bad return. Azam has shone - he's better than when he left us - but the "lesser lights" either side of him in the front row have also done brilliant jobs.

I know that a few eyebrows were raised when Terry Sigley, a nightclub doorman, arrived from Pertemps Bees and we paired him, out of position, with 21-year-old Nick Wood. But while the scrum may not have gone forward it certainly has not gone back - even at Northampton where Terry was up against Tom Smith.

Add Gary Powell from Leeds, and Gloucester have picked up three props for the cost of holding on to one England international, Trevor Woodman, now with Sale. So while we have to keep our wits about us and see what is about on the world market, it is more than worthwhile keeping tabs on what's available at home. And suddenly it has got a whole lot easier.

Until recently second XV rugby was a mess. Just because games were scheduled did not mean they were played and really good players who could not command a guaranteed place in the starting line-up got too little rugby.

Take Simon Amor, who understudies Andy Gomarsall at scrum-half and Duncan McRae at outside-half. In his own right he's one of the mainsprings of England's successful Sevens side, but unless he gets on for 20 minutes or so on Saturdays, he has (or used to have) no meaningful rugby. The same might apply to 15 of our first-team squad.

The difference now is the Zurich A league, a regional competition played on Monday nights and which is proving to be a revelation. The fans have already spotted the quality. More than 5,500 turned up at Leicester this week and our gate of over 2,000, paying not very much to see a fantastic match against London Irish, included Brian Ashton and Jim Mallinder, who run the England Academy.

They were at Kingsholm to run the rule over half a dozen players they are interested in but who might not otherwise get the chance to match themselves against decent opposition. Earlier this season we played Bath and their backline included Mike Tindall, Olly Barkley and Simon Danielli, which was a bit of a shock for the guys we had called up from Coney Hill, Lydney and Cinderford. But it gave us a proper chance to make realistic assessments of whether they would make it.

Just as importantly, we the coaches get the chance to experiment. The buzz among rugby's chattering classes at the moment is about England's underachieving backs and what Andy Robinson and his attack maestro Joe Lydon will do to freshen up the act.

On Monday, in six Zurich A matches, there were three hat-tricks - from Northampton's mobile prop Chris Budgen, Harlequins' Joe Mbu (for the second week running) and Topsy Ojo, the London Irish wing. You can understand the natural conservatism of some coaches and directors of rugby, who see the Premiership as too important for experimenting. Already one head is on the block.

But Monday nights are the perfect test-bed. The quality of rugby is high, the result is almost immaterial, and players are prepared to try something new because they are not going to be pilloried for failure. It's refreshing and important enough for the bulk of our first team to turn up and see what the future might hold.