Smart move, Iestyn, to miss the midsummer madness

In a way, Iestyn Harris ought to be grateful that his arm injury will keep him out of action until October. The season that has started this weekend is bewildering enough to someone who has spent his entire career in rugby union, let alone one about to play it for the first time in his life.

I have no doubt that Iestyn will be a success with Cardiff and Wales. I've watched his career closely since he was a youngster at Warrington when I played there and I have long considered him to be one of the great rugby talents of his generation. We're great friends, so I may be a little biased, but I'm looking forward to helping him adjust to his new career.

Being able to just look and learn from the sideline will be of great benefit to him as he absorbs the different rules, attitudes and tactics – particularly as the mess in which the season starts in Wales ought to have become clearer by the time he is ready to join the fray.

Union will be be as difficult for Iestyn to get accustomed to as league was for me 12 years ago, but I had two distinct advantages. I joined the best team in league at the time. They were quite brilliant, and I could slowly fit into a set-up good enough to put up with my learning difficulties. Cardiff have some great players but have been underachieving and, with a new coach in the South African Rudi Joubert, will take some time to find their feet.

Iestyn might find he is under immediate pressure to make a contribution to a team not quite sure of themselves. Everyone agrees he will need time to adjust but I doubt if he will get it.

We don't even know what position he will slot into. I imagine that inside-centre will suit him best, but it will take a while to find out.

There's talk of him making his Welsh debut against Tonga in November. I don't know how much club rugby he will have played by then but you may as well draw a target on his chest for the Tongans to aim at.

I was a target for all the hard men when I went to league and had to take the knocks, but I had the protection and know-how of the top team to back me up. Iestyn won't have that. His skill as a footballer won't stop him being exposed that early in his learning process.

The other advantage I had was that the league programme is simple and straightforward. It is far more competitively intense than the club season in union, and you know that there is no such thing as an easy game.

In union there are so many different competitions going on that matches differ in importance from week to week, and with the top players switching from club to country duties as well it can be very confusing.

To introduce the Celtic League and start the season in the middle of August is ridiculous. The fans are not ready for it and neither, I suspect, are the players.

The authorities have gone for quantity instead of quality in the hope of creating more income, and it will rebound on them. Some of the Celtic League matches will be more important because they will also count towards the Welsh/Scottish league, and the first part of the season will be a conflict of priorities and pressures. By the time the European Cup starts we could all be fed up with it.

Iestyn hasn't moved for the money but for the chance to play on the big stages. His first lesson is that it is not only a new game but a far more complicated and stressful scene.