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!!!   :) 

 

Stuck, Stuck, Stuck

Yes that's right we got stuck in an elevator!!!  9 of us, Sarah, Meagan, Stef, Chan, Lisa, Jo, Georgie, Roz and myself all stuck in this tiny elevator for just under 30 minutes.  It was def the first time in my life that I have been stuck in a lift, and yes we may have had a few TOO many people in it, But really those people and weight limits are only there to scare people lol !!!!  The weight limit for our tiny little lift was 630kg, and I guess we miss calculated......oops.  

But all is well now, after a bit of an intense and giggle filled HOT and SWEATY 30 odd minutes, the men that "look like elevator guys (Julie Page quote)" managed to get us all out, much to all our relief!!  A HUGE BIG thank you to them, and also to Julie for actually raising the alarm that we were stuck in the lift!!!

We have Internet!!

We have Internet!! Yay!!  So a quick re-cap over the last few days.....

We left our lovely home at the Celtic Manor on Thursday morning, bright and early at 7am after eating a quick breakfast at 6:45am.  We bussed out to Heathrow airport where we caught a British Airways flight to the Amsterdam, Schipnol.  It was great to see some sunshine and feel warm weather.  As most of you know all I ever do is go from winter to winter (from one basketball season to the next), so to spend a day in the sun was awesome!!!  We had a full day of practice on Friday, one session in the morning then another session in the afternoon.  It was good to get some sessions in after a day of travel, the coaches filmed our sessions and were able to really pin point some specific area's that we need to improve on, and other area's where we are all really working well together.

Before we knew it, game day was here, and we were all pretty excited to get on the court and play.  We were playing the Netherlands, which was the team that we played and beat last year in our promo games.  We knew we were going to be in for some good quality play and that's what happened.  We won our first game and got some good things out of it, and we were able to really go into our second game the following day, trying really hard to key in on certain points.  Both games were really good preparation for us, and I believe that they have increased our level of play, and increased our intensity for our tough games that we have coming up against Croatia. 

So right now its Monday night and we are here in Croatia.  We got in at roughly around 5pm, had to be back downstairs ready to go to practice at 5:20pm, and we then had a good work out from 6pm-7pm.  We have our first game against Croatia tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to getting out there and playing hard against them.  It will be a true measure to see how we are in terms of our preparation for our main focus, our European games that are coming up very quickly. 

Also it is great to have Internet access again!!!!  We didn't have a connection in Almere where we stayed.  So it is great to get my email fix and to be able to, of course update my blog!!!  :)

Thank you to everyone who has commented so far  :)  Sarah it was awesome to hear from you, I will send you an email when I get more of a chance!!  

OK lots of luv to everyone, be good, stay safe and I will post again soon  :)