Day 1
The entire NY team met up at Newark but my whole day was spent packing and driving. My dad dropped me off at the airport, but I had to drive out to where my parents live in Port Washington from Brooklyn to eat lunch and get back into the car towards EWR. There was quite a bit of traffic on the Cross Bronx (isn’t there always?) and we made it there at 5:35pm (5 minutes late). I met up with Annie and PK at the check-in and our NY teammate Carrie came to meet us before we went into security to give the NY team a going away package. There were care packages for each person with cookies and a hand-written note for each person. It’s always a surprise to me when people go out of their way to be thoughtful – I don’t know why it is, but maybe it’s that such genuine acts like that are rare nowadays.
We got to the gate and said our hello’s to each other in the food court. Some teammates had flown in from CA and they had been at the airport for a while. Tina lost her passport and she’ll be coming on the same flight the next day. She was really stressed about it, but hopefully it won’t be too hard coming a day later.
We board the plane and there was a group of us at the back – I felt a little sorry for the people around us because we were pretty excited to tell each other stories and just chat after not having been with each other for a long time. Everyone must have gotten a digital camera for Christmas because all of us were snapping away.
I must not have really read the itinerarty, but Kelly (who shared a 3-seater with me with no one in the middle!) told me it was an overnight flight and I realized I had to get some sleep because we would arrive in Edinburgh at 7:30am!! The first 2 hours I was awake and reading the playbook, but despite not having my eyemask, I managed to doze off until we landed (using my wool cap to cover my eyes). We got our luggage, everyone was pretty out of it, and we jammed all our bags underneath a bus to take us to the naval base, HMS Caledonia (in Rosyth).
I’m rooming with Kate Cox and Tina Nesberg (coming tomorrow due to lost passport) and we get in with just enough time to take an hour nap before lunch at 11:30am. Lunch was good – fish and chips (and beans). We have another hour to nap after lunch before the afternoon practice that starts at 2pm. The first nap was really a teaser – my body really didn’t want to get up, but the second nap was pretty good and gave me just enough umpfh to make it through practice. This limited sleep and random napping definitely isn’t optimal– I need a full night’s rest to really have a good practice.
We picked up our kit with 2 track suits, a heavy jacket, a beanie cap, and a t-shirt all from KooGa (our sponsor). I love that we get free gear that makes us look like a team. There’s something to be said for looking sharp.
Practice was mainly ball handling drills and playing touch. I think we all felt a bit foggy from lack of sleep, but it was good to get out and run around. I felt a bit embarrassed because one of the first drills we did required us to pop pass between two lines running toward each other about 5 meters apart, making sure to pass backwards and mine must have been a bit too flat (!) and Kathy started pulling people to sit out if they didn’t pass backward so I (and a few others) had to sit out for a few minutes because we made a forward pass. Not the best way to start off the tour, but she needed us to be more focused and it unfortunately requires some amount of threatening. Hopefully tomorrow we can start off crisp and focused.
After playing touch, we walked back to our dorm (my rainboots keep my feet toasty on the walk to and from the practice pitch…) and we all took showers and we went down to eat dinner (spaghetti & meatballs, mac and cheese, potatoes, and rice pudding). After dinner, we had a team meeting to go through the playbook and make some edits for clarification. Then Kathy wanted to talk to the 2-8-9-10-15 to stress the importance of communication among the key decision-makers. We talk about how it’s important to check-in with each other more often and do a mini-huddle to see if our gameplan is working, what we’re seeing from the opposition, and what we can adjust. I think this is going to be a huge part in our ability to “gel” over this tour and in preparation for World Cup. Kathy then just talked to the 9s (myself and Claudia Braymer) about how when we play Scotland, we should try to establish this periodic communication check-ins.
Kate Cox and I went through the playbook again for about an hour to hour and a half, quizzing each other on line-out calls. It’s just after 10pm and I’m about to curl up with my rugby ball (my sleeping companion), and hit the hay in preparation for a very full day tomorrow. It will be a tough one – breakfast, full contact in the morning with decision-making, lunch, meeting, afternoon session of set pieces, dinner, and an evening video session to watch last year’s match against Scotland. Today seemed to go on forever (I guess it technically did span 2 days…) Dream rugby!
The entire NY team met up at Newark but my whole day was spent packing and driving. My dad dropped me off at the airport, but I had to drive out to where my parents live in Port Washington from Brooklyn to eat lunch and get back into the car towards EWR. There was quite a bit of traffic on the Cross Bronx (isn’t there always?) and we made it there at 5:35pm (5 minutes late). I met up with Annie and PK at the check-in and our NY teammate Carrie came to meet us before we went into security to give the NY team a going away package. There were care packages for each person with cookies and a hand-written note for each person. It’s always a surprise to me when people go out of their way to be thoughtful – I don’t know why it is, but maybe it’s that such genuine acts like that are rare nowadays.
We got to the gate and said our hello’s to each other in the food court. Some teammates had flown in from CA and they had been at the airport for a while. Tina lost her passport and she’ll be coming on the same flight the next day. She was really stressed about it, but hopefully it won’t be too hard coming a day later.
We board the plane and there was a group of us at the back – I felt a little sorry for the people around us because we were pretty excited to tell each other stories and just chat after not having been with each other for a long time. Everyone must have gotten a digital camera for Christmas because all of us were snapping away.
I must not have really read the itinerarty, but Kelly (who shared a 3-seater with me with no one in the middle!) told me it was an overnight flight and I realized I had to get some sleep because we would arrive in Edinburgh at 7:30am!! The first 2 hours I was awake and reading the playbook, but despite not having my eyemask, I managed to doze off until we landed (using my wool cap to cover my eyes). We got our luggage, everyone was pretty out of it, and we jammed all our bags underneath a bus to take us to the naval base, HMS Caledonia (in Rosyth).
I’m rooming with Kate Cox and Tina Nesberg (coming tomorrow due to lost passport) and we get in with just enough time to take an hour nap before lunch at 11:30am. Lunch was good – fish and chips (and beans). We have another hour to nap after lunch before the afternoon practice that starts at 2pm. The first nap was really a teaser – my body really didn’t want to get up, but the second nap was pretty good and gave me just enough umpfh to make it through practice. This limited sleep and random napping definitely isn’t optimal– I need a full night’s rest to really have a good practice.
We picked up our kit with 2 track suits, a heavy jacket, a beanie cap, and a t-shirt all from KooGa (our sponsor). I love that we get free gear that makes us look like a team. There’s something to be said for looking sharp.
Practice was mainly ball handling drills and playing touch. I think we all felt a bit foggy from lack of sleep, but it was good to get out and run around. I felt a bit embarrassed because one of the first drills we did required us to pop pass between two lines running toward each other about 5 meters apart, making sure to pass backwards and mine must have been a bit too flat (!) and Kathy started pulling people to sit out if they didn’t pass backward so I (and a few others) had to sit out for a few minutes because we made a forward pass. Not the best way to start off the tour, but she needed us to be more focused and it unfortunately requires some amount of threatening. Hopefully tomorrow we can start off crisp and focused.
After playing touch, we walked back to our dorm (my rainboots keep my feet toasty on the walk to and from the practice pitch…) and we all took showers and we went down to eat dinner (spaghetti & meatballs, mac and cheese, potatoes, and rice pudding). After dinner, we had a team meeting to go through the playbook and make some edits for clarification. Then Kathy wanted to talk to the 2-8-9-10-15 to stress the importance of communication among the key decision-makers. We talk about how it’s important to check-in with each other more often and do a mini-huddle to see if our gameplan is working, what we’re seeing from the opposition, and what we can adjust. I think this is going to be a huge part in our ability to “gel” over this tour and in preparation for World Cup. Kathy then just talked to the 9s (myself and Claudia Braymer) about how when we play Scotland, we should try to establish this periodic communication check-ins.
Kate Cox and I went through the playbook again for about an hour to hour and a half, quizzing each other on line-out calls. It’s just after 10pm and I’m about to curl up with my rugby ball (my sleeping companion), and hit the hay in preparation for a very full day tomorrow. It will be a tough one – breakfast, full contact in the morning with decision-making, lunch, meeting, afternoon session of set pieces, dinner, and an evening video session to watch last year’s match against Scotland. Today seemed to go on forever (I guess it technically did span 2 days…) Dream rugby!
posted by Lee Knight at 8:18 PM
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