Game Day

So its Sunday the 2nd of November, yes November is here upon us already!!!  There is only 2 months left of 2008, crazy to think how fast 08 has rolled by :)

Anyway 2day is game day here in Italy, and we have our 4th Italian game of the season.  We are currently 2-1 in league play and 1-1 in EuroCup play.  Today we play the other team from Sicily, Priolo and it is going to be a pretty tough game.  They are coming of a really good win last week, and well we lost a game that we shouldn't have lost last Sunday.  Since then though we have bounced back and we had a good win against a team from Portugal on Thursday night in our EuroCup game.  So it should be a real good game today and hopefully we can come out on top with a win :)  No Doubt the gym will be packed with screaming fans, from both sides I'm sure, but hopefully more of our fans than theirs!!!  Gotta get that home court advantage :)

Not much else has been happening, I've been kept pretty busy with games, practice, treatment and down time!!  I've been keeping an eye on college stuff, well Tulsa news!!  Our football team is having a great year so far and have even broken into the top 25!!!  Go TU Football!!  Also our men's basketball team is being predicted to have a big season too.  And I know that the women's team is going to be pretty competitive this year too, even though I may not be round TU I'm still keeping an eye and ear on everything going on!!!  Good luck to the Women's team for the season, go get em Coach CT  :)

Alrighty well must be off, time to get ready for our shoot around, GAME DAY!!!!!

Pics of Rome

The Colosseum!!

We even found a gladiator there!!

Just a few pics from my few days in Rome :)

Update Update Update

Well it has been forever since I last wrote on this, what can I say, I've been super busy, and time seems to have flown by so fast this past month.  I mean we are half way through October already and Christmas will be here before we know it....crazyness.

So to update everyone on where I am, I'm not in Cardiff Wales anymore with the national team, thats done until january.  I am now currently in Sicily, Italy and loving it I might add.  I'm in a little town called Ribera, which is about 1 and a half hours out of Palermo.  This will be my home til april/may next year and so far everything has been pretty good.  The team have been really good so far, I was able to go back home to Melbourne for a few days after national team duties, and get a few days of rest and then back to it all.

So far we've played two Euro cup games, which we won, and that got us into the European competition.  So we'll play two games a week now, one for the European competition, and one for the Italian league.  We also played our first game for the Italian league, which was in Rome.  We were expected to lose and sure enough we pulled off an upset, which put us all in great moods.  Instead of flying straight back to Ribera a few of us chose to stay for two extra nights.  We got to see some amazing sights in Rome and it was well worth all of the walking we did!!!! I will give a more detailed update at a later date, and maybe a few pics too  :)

Alrighty well its time to take off again, but I will update again hopefully very very soon :)  

Oh and a few pics

And here a few pics from the ropes day  :)

Where to start????

Well its been pretty much a week since my last post and where do I begin???.......  I guess we'll start with the game against Ukraine.  For those who don't know we lost our first Eurobasekt qualifier game 59-54.  It was quite a disappointing result for us, as I believe that we are the better team, but we just didn't perform to our best that night.  The gym that we played in was packed, it was a pretty awesome atmosphere having a gym full of screaming fans, however it would have been much better if they were screaming for us!!  :)  (So note to all our fans, our first home game is on Wednesday night at the Welsh Institute of Sport at 7:30pm, hope to see our stands packed too!!!)  Our first half of the game was not pretty, and we struggled to get points on the board.  We went into the locker room 18pts down and feeling a bit deflated.  

But we came out in the second half and turned things around, we knew that we were doing a fairly decent job on the defensive end, but we just needed to find a way to put the ball through the hole!!  With two minutes left we were 5pts down after clawing our way back into the game, but we were unable to get any closer than that.  Everyone was frustrated and disappointed with the loss, we know that we can be a good team, and that we CAN compete with these teams, we just have to come out and put a whole game together.

So we've know got Lithuania coming up on Wednesday night and we've been practicing hard trying to correct all the "little things" that will hopefully help us to get a W on the board.  Lithuania is going to be a very tough game, they could be one of the toughest teams in our pool, so no one is taking them lightly.  We are preparing for them as we do every team, so it will should be a very competitive game.  Wednesday night, Tip-off is at 7:30pm!!!!! 

Other news, congrats to all the Breakers girls winning their first grand final game!!!  Awesome news, I knew you guys could do it, 1-0 baby!!  Now lets just finish of this series this weekend and take the title in 2 games, no need for 3 :)  Go out there and play hard and know that this is your win.  Take it from them on their own home court!!!  Best of luck to you all, and I will be eagerly awaiting the results.  Good Luck Breakers  :)

Also a belated happy birthday to both my brothers!!  James was on the 14th and Andrew was on the 15th, I cant believe how old you guys are getting now.  Your just growing up so quick.  I'm sorry i missed another one of your birthdays, but I was thinking about you both and I did text and call!!! 

Alrighty well its going on 10pm here and I'm extremely tired so I'm cutting it short and calling it a night.  Be good and stay safe  :)

Getting closer now...

Well we have our first big game coming up and we've been on court starting to prepare for our first Eurobasket game.  We got back to our home base the Celtic Manor on Thursday night, and we spent Friday recovering from a very long week.  Some players took the opportunity to take off and visit family for the day, while others stayed at the hotel and enjoyed a nice relaxing day, with a massage thrown in there too!!!  I might throw in there, that my roomie, Harriet, and I watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics.  It gave us a real giddy and nervous feeling to think that in four years, hopefully that will be us!!!  :)

Saturday we hit the court, back to our normal schedule of practice and started making a few adjustments for our upcoming game against the Ukraine.  Speaking of the Ukraine, this will be my first time going there, so i get to add another country to my list of countries I've travelled too!!  We'll be heading out early Tuesday morning, so the blog might be a bit outdated for a few days until I get back.  It all just depends on whether we get Internet access over there.

Oh yeh and a big shout out to all the Mornington Breakers Big V girls back home.  Big congrats on handling Darebin in the semi's.  Now its time to take care of business and finish the season off on the right note.  Don't go in under estimating Melton, expect to have a fight on your hands, but don't let that scare you.  You guys are the better team, and I'm expecting game reports consisting of W's!!!!!  So good luck to you all, play hard and enjoy the moment :)

Ok well I'm off to nap, so until next time, stay safe, be good and keep on smiling  :)

1-1

So a quick update before we head off to the airport for our day of travel back to the Celtic Manor.  Our games against Croatia are over, we split with them.  Tuesday night we, lost 81-69, in what I must say was not one of our better performances.  But we reviewed the game and came out on Wednesday night trying to make all the little adjustments that we had talked about.  When the final buzzer rang, we came out on top, 72-62!!  

Overall these games don't mean a whole lot as they are friendlies and more practice for each team.  However, last year when we came to Croatia, we lost both games.  So to have split our trip with them, I believe that it shows the GB Women's program is moving in the right direction.  Obviously we still have a lot of work to do, and by no means is anyone satisfied, because WE CAN be so much better.  So congrats to the team on a very good win and here's to hard work and moving forward!!!   :)