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Friday, October 08, 2004
Rugby Training in Ukraine
Today was my first run in rugby (excepting the sevens appearance in Paraguay) in over a year, since our grand final last year.
After a bit of difficulty I located the ground and got there early.
First thing I notice is the grass, well lack of it, not a blade of grass on the field, just some soft dirt and sawdust.
Now you could say it was similar to a Beecroft training. Mixed abilities of players, but not quite so many creative methods. My first experience is trying to watch and copy in the warm up as I have no idea what they are saying. After a few basic exercises they break into pairs for these little shoulder charges. By the time I've figured out what we are doing, I look round for a partner, and there I see Procky with a grin on his face. Well a hard gnarly old prop (sorry Procky) with a grin that said "hello new boy, it's just you and me left". He wasn't much more than 5 foot but still weighed about 120kgs of muscle. Must say the shoulders got a good work out. I think he enjoyed it.
Here I must add that as small as I was known to be at Beecroft, for some reason I have lost 10kgs since I came here.
They tried to send me over with the backs but I convinced them that I was going to run with the forwards. Mauling work was great, then we head over for some line out practice, my speciality, looking forward to this. I can't understand their calls, makes it a little difficult. One guy tells me that a country ball is two steps back and then jump. That sounds logical, I can handle that. How was I supposed to know that Wes is a country!? I think they were trying to say Wales; I just wanted to know who Wes was.
Glad to say that I know half of the team's names. If I say Alex or Sergey then I have half the team!
Then it's practice runs and I join the opposition guys to give a bit of a practice. First up the biggest guy picks me out, well I wasn't going to be shown up, so I stopped him but I nearly broke my nose doing so. But I wasn't going to rub it (well not much).
We played til it was way too dark to see the ball and needless to say I was stuffed.
After a bit of difficulty I located the ground and got there early.
First thing I notice is the grass, well lack of it, not a blade of grass on the field, just some soft dirt and sawdust.
Now you could say it was similar to a Beecroft training. Mixed abilities of players, but not quite so many creative methods. My first experience is trying to watch and copy in the warm up as I have no idea what they are saying. After a few basic exercises they break into pairs for these little shoulder charges. By the time I've figured out what we are doing, I look round for a partner, and there I see Procky with a grin on his face. Well a hard gnarly old prop (sorry Procky) with a grin that said "hello new boy, it's just you and me left". He wasn't much more than 5 foot but still weighed about 120kgs of muscle. Must say the shoulders got a good work out. I think he enjoyed it.
Here I must add that as small as I was known to be at Beecroft, for some reason I have lost 10kgs since I came here.
They tried to send me over with the backs but I convinced them that I was going to run with the forwards. Mauling work was great, then we head over for some line out practice, my speciality, looking forward to this. I can't understand their calls, makes it a little difficult. One guy tells me that a country ball is two steps back and then jump. That sounds logical, I can handle that. How was I supposed to know that Wes is a country!? I think they were trying to say Wales; I just wanted to know who Wes was.
Glad to say that I know half of the team's names. If I say Alex or Sergey then I have half the team!
Then it's practice runs and I join the opposition guys to give a bit of a practice. First up the biggest guy picks me out, well I wasn't going to be shown up, so I stopped him but I nearly broke my nose doing so. But I wasn't going to rub it (well not much).
We played til it was way too dark to see the ball and needless to say I was stuffed.
