World Cup 3: After the first practice

So it's been a long but productive day. We started the day with a meeting with Trie who is testing the rise and fall of testosterone and cortisol during competition as part of her Master's thesis. She wants to test all levels of players, so working with the National team is great for her. The process however turned into quite a spectacle. Here's the way the procedure works. First, you must gargle with spring water. Then chew Trident Original (it's the one that's scientifically proven) for three minutes before proceeding to spit 5mL of saliva into 2 different test-tubes. Some people struggled with the process more than others

Lee passing out our supplies!


Trying to fill the test-tube!


After the testing we went to the pitch for our two practice sessions. The morning was primarily devoted to lineouts for us forwards. I have know idea what the backs do when they go off by themselves, but I can only assume it has something to do with being fast. Lunch came and went and was accented by the presence of coke and frosted animal crackers (a prop's best friend). After that we split again and we forwards wandered over to the scrum-sled (which turned out to be a slight hike away) and spent a lot of time scrumming. It was a really awesome session and we really felt like we were gelling by the time we all came back together.

After practice we got to come back to the hotel and shower before heading over to Outback for dinner. As a forward I stongly support this process of food being readily available immediately upon entering an establishment. It prevents the onset of crankiness. Once we were done with dinner we had a little downtime before heading to our team meeting. I spent that time learning how to put pictures into my posts, which after a few frsutrated attempts were thwarted I figured it out.

The meeting was really good for us to just talk about what we're trying to do tactically. Tomorrow we're doing a controlled scrimmage with the midwest folks so it'll be a good opportunity to look at all the stuff we've been working on. Alright, now it's time for me to go to bed. I originally was going to wait to do this til tomorrow but then I figured I had the energy for it, why not.