Yes Mum, I’m still alive.
Everything going on here in Istanbul is amazing. What an experience! I have been writing down what I’ve been doing in a notepad, so I should be able to transfer it all to here when I have some time.I am getting many ideas of how to develop the sport in Victoria.
A few more days here in Turkey and then it’s back to Germany for the u19s.
Hope you are all well.
We beat Sweden again, 17-9 this morning. Which puts us in the 5/6 game against Great Britain.
The girls won their semi against Canada and are playing in the Final tomorrow.
We lost to Germany. Every other team was shocked after watching us play last night. As you would imagine, the boys are disappointed.
We had an early game against Ireland today. We won it 17-7, which means we finish second in our pool, behind Canada. We have the quarter final this afternoon against Germany. It is now do or die. A loss now means we are out of the running.
Personally, I played the first point of the game this morning before going off for the rest of the game. I hurt my right foot/ankle in the game against Columbia last night and it was still a bit tender this morning. I have got it strapped differently for this afternoon so hopefully I’ll be able to play again.
Keep up to date via Force Sideline.
Sorry, I havn’t been able to update you lately.
As you have probably already found out. We lost to Canada 12-14. It was a closely fought game and could go either way next time.
We played Sweden next. We were expecting them to come out hard as they had taken it to Columbia the night before. We were a few up at half and then took over in the second half to close the game out 17-8. They were very disappointed with their performance. We were happy with ours.
This morning we played against Austria and I was rested for the first half (we have a rotation policy). We came out strong getting a few breaks in a row to go up 6-1. They fought back with 4 goals in a row and got to within two. We traded for quite a while but then ended strong with the game finishing at 17-13.
Tonight we play in the showcase game against Columbia in the Velodrome. It’s under lights and will have quite a few people watching from the stands. It should be a great game.
Personally, I am really happy with how I am playing. I was nervous pre-tourny as I havn’t been running for the last 3 months. The drugs are working and I have been able to run without pain. I manage to keep up with my players and shut them down on defense. Our team defence is working really well and shows with us getting 4 callahans so far.
We are confident that we can go all the way.
The Stingrays started well with 2 wins 17-0. They have since had losses to Canada and Japan. Not sure of their result form this afternoon against Great Britain but I’m hoping it’s a win.
Will put up some more photos tonight or in the morning.
This is another quick update.
This morning we beat Italy 17-3. The team played well. Everyone did their bit. Italy weren’t very strong, so we’re not concentrating too much on the game.
The girls beat Germany without dropping a point. Some photos uploaded.
This is going to be short for now but I will come back and edit this post with more detail tonight.
Yesterday we went and had a short training session on the fields, then came back our session with Abra, before walking into the main Piazza for the welcome by the Vice Mayor. Quite a long story about a special moment will come about this later.
Basically it was amazing.
After that we went down to a larger square where we just threw for an hour or so just showing the public what Ultimate was. We then caught buses to a stadium where the opening ceremony sort of happened.
We watched the opening game between Japan and Switzerland (Japan won) and then got home by 11.30pm.
Our first game is this morning at 11am against Italy.
Tell you more later. Bye.
Hey, they’ve just announced that they will be updating scores on this website. This will be the best way to keep up-to-date with results. It has everything.. all games, individual stats, who’s winning each pool etc..
Check out our pool here: http://scores.wucc2010.com/?view=poolstatus&Pool=1129
And our individual stats here: http://scores.wucc2010.com/?view=teamcard&Team=1284
Have fun.
Yesterday we got up for breakfast and then had a stretch session on the beach. It was actually cool outside today, and quite windy too. Such a relief, I was starting to get sick of sweating contantly. After packing up my gear, we caught cabs to the Rimini Train Station and boarded the train to Bologna. We waited there for an hour and then caught another train to Florence.
Our accomodation wasn’t far from the station and it’s also walking distance to the fields, which is great. We are in 3 person apartments complete with mini-kitchen, bathroom & living area. The most important thing is that it also has air conditioning! This accomodation is perfect for us and we will all sleep better now (I didn’t have any problems sleeping at the last place).
After checking in all our stuff, we headed off to the fields for a throw. Unfortunately, the fields are pretty bad quality. We could probably mow a field into one of the horse paddocks at Mum’s and have just as good a field. I’m not even joking. So that is disappointing, but we all have to play on the same fields, so it’s not worth complaining about.
After the throw we walked around looking for a supermarket to get some dinner. Chook, Rory and I cooked up some pasta (carbo loading) in our mini-kitchen.
After that we had a team meeting just to go over the plan for today. We were also joined by Abra and John Liddicoat (both assistant coaches) for the first time on the trip, so now we are pretty much all here.
The plan for today is a short training session at the fields at 10am, followed up by a Sports Psychology session with Abra back at the accomodation. We’ll get some lunch and then all head into the central Piazza of Florence where the Vice-Mayor is welcoming the tournament. From there we are being shuttled to the fields where we will get dinner, have the opening ceremony, and then watch a showcase game. It all starts today!
Unfortunately I’ve forgotten to take many/any photos over the last few days. Sorry.