game day 1 part 2

So after the bus-tree-landrover incident a number of twist players went out to watch the Socceroos play the Dutch team...sans some big name players Mark VanBommel, R VanPersie, Arjen Robben, and Ruud...Watching the game was truly a treat to the eyes as the dutch played some wonderful one and 2-touch footy (and some of them were not too hard on the eyes)...The result was a 0-0 draw (maybe a little foreshadowing)...but definitely worth the time spent...

The game was followed by a slightly impromptu party in the meriton...a late night for room 3105.

Battle of Canada

So we've skipped a day but we'll get back to that later...The first thing Dani and the little beaner will want to know about is the game...She probably wore her shinpads to bed...and i bet the little bean had on her twist sleeper and tiny shinpads...

So our commute to the game was not quite so interesting as saturday's trip back to our digs...

As we lined up to play Saskatchewan the commentator said he expected quite a battle because there were 6 officials on the sidelines...

Once the game commenced we took it to them but a quick break saw them call Laurie into action for some slick saves...Once we recovered from that little panic attack we started pressing their goal with their keeper making a fine tipover and Sue connecting slightly wide of the target on 2 occasions...The halftime talk was a reminder from coach K to play like Holland...In the second half we were unable to keep our touches tidy but continued to hold possession with some good hard work to control the play...Janet earned us a Penalty shot but the keeper was able to get behind Sinky's shot keeping it scoreless...After that we bombarded their net but failed to find that elusive goal...Janet had a fair cry for a second penalty but the ref didn't see it that way...and again Scurr had a foul in the box that was worth a penalty shout...but again the ref wouldn't bite...Shortly after that Janet worked a great ball across the 6 that Scurr popped over the net... 

Alas at the end of the game...we had controlled a lot of play but were unable to find the kill...

The 0-0 result keeps us in the battle...And as coach K said "all we need to do is win the last game"...

 

  

it took 2 years...

But it was Finally here...GAME DAY!!!!! 

After 2 years of preparation we were finally about to step onto the world masters competition field of play.  With Badaydohead on the bench with us...Our first competition featured us playing Random United...a team that had just met the morning of the game...As a team they weren't fully cohesive but they did have a number of decent players.  There was a rumour that some of them were former national player (but I have no proof of this rumour)...We had the shakes and some turretish first touches (you know what that means Dani)...Even with the nerves evident, we did pull away with the lead with a long ball from B to Janet who popped home our first Australian goal...For the 10 mins or so we had a good portion (albeit still turret-ish)...Susie had a pretty ridiculously fun individual effort which she nodded slightly wide...Then Michele had a sweet little turn into a shot but it went right into the hands of the keeper...Kim made a big tipover save from a crazy corner that showed that they had some skillful players...Just before the half time whistle we had a sad penalty called against us...We went into the half...After the half time calm down talk from Coach K we went into the second and played some better footy and owned a good portion...Sadly we came up came up slightly short on our 3 best opportunities...Brandi's cheeky little ball that the keeper tier over, Sinky's shot into the armss of the keeper and Rambo's header slightly wide...Not a bad result for our first game down under...1-1

Our trip home was a slight adventure...we boarded our shuttle and sat and waited and waited and waited to head back to the rail...So we started out the parking lot exactly on schedule...we took a tight turn and missed the truck...we cheered our driver on because he did sooo well...the next thing we knew we were stuck under the branch...A fellow driver offered to help and carefully guided our driver...RIGHT INTO THE FREAKIN' LAND ROVER...So by the time the land rover lady came and looked at her scratched vehicle and moved it we were happily on our way...What a riot!

      

Sweet Sleep....

After being awake for 48 hour and the time change we finally got some rest....although everyone was waking up at 6 am Sydney time which is 3pm back home. Thank goodness for the fab digs (Michele rocks). We have the most gorgeous views of Sydney and the apartments are beautiful.  So Days 2 & 3 consisted of various site seeing adventures like the aquarium, wild life world, sydney opera house to name a few and a few tourist shops. We also had our first and last practices in Sydney. Finding a field to do this was an adventure in itself! But once we did we got a good work out in that include a jog through the botanical gardens. You will be happy to know there have been no spider fatalities to this point.

Naked Ladies on Plane!!!

So we made it to Sydney...approx 6 hours to LAX then 18 hour to Sydney. As a team, we met at Pearson Airport at 3:15...well almost everyone(Ms Billington...lol). We headed toward our entry point for our flight with great excitment and even greater amount of luggage. As we waited patiently, wouldn't you know that Sue Veitch and Janet Sury somehow saw and got talking to the Bare Naked Ladies in the airport who were also on their way to LA....now Rambo made her way into the picture cuz she seem to think that they would take her to their photo shoot in LA, well she was wrong!!!

To our surprise, we didn't have seats blocked together as a team as per our request to our travel agent's. But we survived although Pfeiff was thinking about tossing the guy beside her out of the plane for touching her with his hairy arm...ewwwww. Most of us passed the time watching movies and some even cried to those movies but we're not naming names....but I really want to!!!

Once in LA we transferred fairly easily to our Sydney flight. The flight went pretty smooth and most were able to get some sleep even in their close quarters. Some were a little jealous that Jenn Granger and Andrea Pfeiff got upgraded seating because they are such a 'big deal'.

Once we landed, we went through customs and some on the team had their cleats taken away to be cleaned as they were dirty but got them back thank goodness...they don't want Cdn dirty in the Land of Oz.  We then went to our bus that is taking us to our hotel....it was approximately 10000 miles from where we picked up our luggage. Once we got to our bus, our bus driver (the australian leprechaun) was definitely a character with some very dramatic habitssssssss. But having Pfeiff rock the mic and being tour guide made the trip quite entertaining. It was especially hilarious to hear Coach Kevin ask " they make songs about big butts?". 

Once we got to our hotel, unloaded our stuff, we ran to Olympic Park to get registered. That experience took half a day in the not so nice weather in Sydney. Once we finally got that completed we were pretty tired and blurry eyed although our team won some free tickets to the Australia vs Netherlands game on Sat. thanks to Pfeiff and Rambo's trivia skills. 

We were sooo tired after our first day, cancelled our first team meeting at the hotel and had it in the subway on the way back to our hotel. Officially Day One is done!