Second senior tour 2006 london and italy

1st Stop London

Starting our second senior tour for the year we were all looking forward to going to London as our first stop. It was unusual in many ways. First it was not often we toured a country which actually had English as a first language. Second Great Britain were not known for their volleyball prowess so we were all keen to put 'the old country' in their place as we like to do in any sport and thirdly on a more personal note I would get to see my former roomate Stewart the Scotsman! (See early blogs for Stewarts stupid antics) The mandatory travel time of about 30 hrs in a shockingly smal seated jumbo was then met with a quick stretching/training session (in which i could hardly see the ball) followed by a long sleep. After the morning training we had the opportunity to have a look around London. Cathching 'The Tube' into town we quickly (and almost accidentially) found our way to the major attractions withinh only 4-5 hours. Quite a feat considering we saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St Pauls Cathederal, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Number 10 Downing Street, The Eye, London Bridge, London central and Mr Plow (Fergs) and myself even found our way to Harrods. Personally I was really impressed with London from the little I saw. I didn't expect a lot for some reason but I loved the uniqueness and Victorian style of the entire city. Certainly something thats not avaliable in Australia. Unfortunatelly the experience was short lived and it was time to get back to the hotel and get ready for the impending match.



The Matches

As Im writing this blog over a month after the match I apologise for any inaccurate reporting since most games now just spread into 1. The first match was a little shaky for us Aussies, especially in the first set where we had to take it to 26-24 to get over the line againt the slightly plucky Brits. After adjusting to the Brits less orthadox play than what we were used too (tipping and rolling) we soon began to gain our rhythm and finished off to take the first match 3-0 much to the delight of Igor who could not play due to a tooth problem which forced his chin to sweel up to double its average size.
The second match was much of the same as the last 2 sets in the first match. We were also able to give Jarryd our youngest player (17) on for a lot of the match, doing a good job in the process. Special mention in this match goes to Aden who managed to hide a match ball under his shirt for almost a minute before the ball boy realised. The ball boy (at 14 years old and 55kg) decided to shape up at Aden giving us all a 'jolly good' laugh.
By the third match we were starting to hit our straps. Playing with some real enthusiasm our young team was able to blast the Brits of the court from the service line. Finishing the 3rd set with a tidy 25-9 scoreline. Joining us for this match was our band of loyal supporters who follow us on our many tours around the world (Nik West) Westy just happened to be on his way to Denamrk and managed to pop in much to Stewarts delight. So as we left Great Britain we were still to lose a set, however we knew there would be a hard task ahead of us as we faced a well respected and Olympic level team in Tunisia.

Italia!

On the way to Tunisia we had a couple of day stop over in Italy where we were able to train and enjoy the sights that Varese had to offer. Much as the same as the last tour, there was pristine weather conditions making for a great few days. However as soon as we had arrived in this great placed we were whisked off back to reality when we travelled to Tunisia (via Newcastle and London)