Day 16 - Tues 28th Oct 08

Leeds MET Carnegie are proud sponsors of the Rugby League Ireland International team and Rugby League Ireland, the governing body of Rugby League in Ireland. As a representative of the University I have been very lucky to join the team on tour during their World Cup campaign and hope to give you a flavour of some of the non playing elements of being part of a World Cup group such as this.

Today was a day off for the team after the exertions of the previous night against Tonga. The morning began with an hour of rehab to recover from the knocks and a triage sessions for the team doc and physio to plan treatments for the week on injured players and brief the management/coaches on who might need alternative training regimes to avoid aggravating injuries.

With this all done we set off for Manly. Sam our coach driver brought the entire playing squad on our team bus to Manly with a quick stop along the way to get supplies for a day at the beach. None of the management team came to the beach as they had other work to do catching up on world Cup media briefings, planning agendas for the coming days, analyisng video footage from the previous nights games to show players the positive and negative aspects of their roles as individuals and team members. I am sure they will get their time off too but unfortunately for them not today. Ultimately we ended up at Shelley Beach which was fine apart from the weather. The previous day, game day, had been blisteringly hot whereas today was disappointingly cloudy. That wasn't going to dampen the spirit for the day.

A traditional aussie beach bar-b-q was followed by cricket, football and a dip in the freezing cold sea. We kept other beachies amused with regular sing-a-longs and the team songbooks proved a valuable asset for those of us that don´t know the words for all the songs. Days like this can be just as important as any training session to impore morale after a defeat but also to kinder team spirit within the playing squad. We had gotten the coach to the beach but Sam wasn't waiting around for us all day so we had to get our own way back to the Team Hotel Crowne Plaza by Taxi. We had hoped to travel back by ferry but that wasn´t possible after 6pm. Early night tonight as we have to be ready for the team photograph in the morning, by Sydney Harbour Bridge. Hopefully no one has gotten burnt today in advance of the photo tomorrow.

Ni Neart go cur le cheile