Day 6 from Japan

Up early but didn`t sleep too well mainly due to Fraser Armstrong`s heavy breathing . Dreamt about today`s game. Breakfast of egg, ham and salad. Thank goodness for cornflakes! 9.15 am walk through moves on the fields. A few untried combinations today and things take a while to gel. The dirty dirties (the players not stripping today) have their name changed to the filthy few. Their job is to help Mrs Clark and Tama with gear and setting up for practice. 11.00am rubs begin with a light snack at 11.30. We start to get strapped by the Doc (Tiwini Hemi) at 11.45. We walk across to the stadium at 12.15 and begin our warm-up. Our game vs Toin Gakuen H.S. kicks off at 1.30 and we are stunned by an early try and conversion from our feisty opposition. A few minutes later they score again but we stay composed and Adam Burn talks about the importance of first up tackles. From the kick off we quickly get back into the game with some telling runs from the big boys – Joe Walsh, Hugh Blake and the Grassroots Trust player of the day Fraser Armstrong, who also scored a 1st half try. This was followed quickly by tries to hooker Hayden Wisnewski and winger Jesse Dodunski. Josh Smith kicked 5 out of 5 conversions in the game including 2nd half  tries to Josh Fa`agalu and a stunner to Hugh Blake who took an inside ball from Adam Burn. Final score an unconvincing 35 – 15. Hayden also stunned the crowd with an attempted drop kick, which would have been ok if he hadn`t fallen on his butt with the ball dribbling along the ground. After the game we supported our brothers from Fushimi H.S. in their loss against the huge Aussies. This hasn`t gone down well with the diggers from across the ditch and I fear our relationship will only deteriorate from here. Back to the dorms for meeting and medical assessment before heading to the bathhouse for hot and colds. Most of the boys into this now except Jesse who were struggling to get into the bath and Nick Ross who we can`t get out. Free time until dinner at the restaurant at 6.20 pm. Video analysis  at 7.30 and I cringe at the thought of reviewing my mistakes – and yes their was quite a few! Mrs Clark reads out the e-mails sent to us and I`m starting to wonder if my mum still loves me. The Doc and his brother Jojo Hemi bring the team bread, jam and ice creams. Great fullas. The team named for tomorrows game against Saga Technical H.S. and I`m named in the filthy few. Need to get my game together if I`m going to push for a starting spot. Lights out at 9.30 pm and I try to doze off to the soothing sounds of Fraser`s breathing.

Saiyonara
No. 16