Australian Odyssey (a developing story)

All the players (Jared Funk, Daniel Paradis, Trevor Hirschfield, Patrice Simard, Dave Willsie, Say Luangkhamdeng, Martin Larocque, Travis Murao, Fabien Lavoie, Mike Whitehead, Ian Chan and Garett Hickling) and most of the staff (Thomas Zochowski (physiologist), Stephan Charbonneau (equipment manager), Cathy Cadieux (team leader) and Michelle Wyngaarden (video)) all got in today, Wednesday Nov 14th (+16 hours for EST and +19 hours for PST time difference). We are still missing David Cox (sports psychologist) and Nancy Botting (physiotherapist). Adam Frost (assistant coach) and Benoit Labrecque (head coach) have been in Sydney since Nov 12th to scope out the place.

It is always interesting when you have such a large group arriving at the same time... you always wonder, who will have their stuff and who won’t? Chair-wise, we are only missing Ian’s chair, its somewhere in transit between San Diego, Portland, Vancouver, Honolulu, and Sydney. Good luck with that! But overall it’s been good.

Everything else went pretty smoothly and Benoit and I didn’t get lost too badly today driving a rental around town.

Players went to the hotel along with some of the staff and Benoit, while Steph and I drove to Mt-Druitt (Kevin Betts Stadium) to deliver the chairs to the practice facility. Its gonna be a hot one for many reasons on the 18th when we face Australia at 11am and New Zealand at 3pm when we scrimmage against them.

Most of the players looked to be in decent shape after such a long flight but the next few days will prove to be crucial as players will need to acclimatize quickly as we will be practicing on the 18th (no a/c and temps around 28°, and we start play on the 20th). It takes some time to get back in a good rhythm when you travel but the guys will be ok.

There is lots to do around the hotel as we are nicely located in Darling Harbour. We are staying at the 4 Points by Sheraton until we move to a Holiday Inn on Rooty Hill on the 17th where all the other nations will also come together.

At this tournament we will be facing in order: New Zealand, South Korea on Day 1; Japan and South Africa on Day 2, and finally Australia and China on Day 3.

http://www.cwsa.ca/oc-2007.html or http://www.oceaniawrc.com.au/draw.htm. If U go on the OC website at http://www.oceaniawrc.com.au/teams.htm its amazing how all the players look alike. I dare you to tell any of the guys apart from any country! ;)

Its now around 18:00 and we have meetings at 18:45 (staff only), 19:00 (staff and players) and then people will undoubtedly chill for the rest of the night and plan for tomorrow.


Talk to you soon,

Marco