Day before the tournament

We started off the day by checking out of the King Park hotel in Kota Kinabalu, and headed off to training. the bus ride to training was rather interesting today, mainly because when we got onto the bus the entire Malaysian Womens Rugby team was already on the bus sitting in the back. We had some laughs with them, and even did a karaoke of the "hotel california" on the way to training. (the bus had a tv with a karaoke dvd).

At training we just polished up some moves and made sure everyone knew what exactly was going on. After training, we had our usual closing speech given by the coach. This particular speech though he was going to announce the team he had chosen and the starting line up. Even though there had been 14 of us training together day in and day out in the hot sun, he could only take 12 players for this tournament. Everyone was extremely nervous but excited to hear the news. I was thrilled when i officially made the team, and even more so when he announced the starting line up. not only had a made the team but he chose me to be the starting hooker for the Philippine national team for an international test match. all the hard work had paid off, but only partially, we still have games to win tomorrow.

As we entered the hotel the nerves of the tournament finally started to kick in for me. Sitting on the lounge coaches as we walked in with our luggage's and training gear was the Japanese National Team. they are renowned for being the best team in asia, and not only we they right there relaxing next to us, but we would be hopefully playing them in only 1 days time. its a pretty big welcoming for international 7s for me.

After we settled in we had a quick team meeting and went to lunch. Today's lunch was a buffet style meal at our hotel (the Grand Borneo), which definitely beats Kenny Rogers 3 days in a row. We then had another team meeting where we were individually called up to teach the team random plays from our playbook. 24 plays in 1 week to memorize and recite, not an easy task but everyone was able to complete it to our surprise. That just shows our preparation and commitment to success in this tournament. A quick pool session followed and then to dinner. Dinner was at the grand ballroom which fit all the teams in the tournament. It was a sight to see, a room filled with all of asia's best team like Korea, China, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, Japan, and many more. Even all the professional clubs featured in the tournament were there, filled with super 14 players from new zealand, fiji, samoa, australia, etc. and the legendary Tomasi Cama was spotted across the room.

The excitement is truly building up for the biggest debut of Philippine rugby to date. Its time for evening stretches, icing and massages to get ready for the series of games tomorrow. 3 games are scheduled starting around noon. Should be a memorable experience that I cant wait to happen. I'll let everyone know how it goes tomorrow, but in the mean time wish us luck!

3rd day of training

Today was the lightest training day of the tour so far. We started off the day with the usual 8am breakfast, but this particular start to the day had an unexpected twist to it. As we walked into breakfast we were given two sleeves of blank paper and a pen. It was a pop quiz. We had to write down and diagram all our a plays in the playbook and the ones we created over the last few days. Each player was expected to have at least 15 of the plays named and drawn by the time breakfast was over so we could get to training on time. It was a pretty challenging task given that I had only been able to glance at the playbook a few times, but I managed to complete the assignment and head to practice with the rest of the team.

Training was also different that what we had been used to. Today we were able to start our practice inside the stadium. We took a few light laps around the field, studying every corner of the pitch to ensure that there were no surprises on game day. We wanted to be conscious to things like where the ground was harder or softer, if the grass was longer in any area, if there were an uneven areas to the field, etc. We also used this to get used to the feel of the stadium. Its such a large venue looking around, a stadium seating more than 40,000 fans is just intimidating to be in, but what we learned as a team is the field is exactly the same dimensions as any field we have been playing on our whole lives. it is nothing different to what we are used to playing back home. We cant be fixated on what goes on around the stadium, only what we can control, which is on the pitch, and having that light run through on the pitch really imbedded the fact that despite the intimidating presence of the stadium, there really was nothing to be nervous or afraid of. We are just playing the game we love playing and know how to play. We ended the session by going over a few more plays and some sprints as usual. We then headed to lunch, and you guessed it, kenny rogers for the 3rd day in a row.

after lunch it was time for our final training session. At this point the soreness and fatigue of training camp was finally settling in on some people as the start of training was a bit sluggish. Simple 3 vs 2 drills and defensive alignment drills were giving us trouble. Balls were being dropped and people were missing assignments. As you probably could have guessed, this didnt sit well with the coaching staff. A few sprints seemed to be there medicine to fix the problem. This actually work though. After the sprints, the entire team came together and actually started to play like a team. Passes were spot on, gaps were being formed to perfection and communication has at an all time high on defense. It really lightened up the mood that we were finally making these plays look good, and despite the heavy rainfall and lightning that we were playing through, we were finally seeing daylight in our gameplay. We ended training with a fun game called Rugby Baseball, in honor of the World Series thats going on back in the states.

Dinner was called for 7pm in our team polos, so I knew we were going somewhere nicer than pizza hut thank God. They surprised us with dinner at a local steak restaurant called "pirates of borneo". Steaks and ribs hit the spot and they even allowed some of the boys to take a night off from the "no alcohol" rule and have a few beers with the coaches. I decided to stick with the "100+" which is their version of gatorade, but it was nice to take some stress off and finally relax. The owner of the restaurant even came out to personally thank us for coming to his restaurant and agreed to arrange a lamb and pig roast for us at his restaurant after our games on sunday. In return he wanted us to sign a Philippine Flag which he will hang from his ceiling. The day overall was a great day, and I am really looking forward to keeping this momentum going tomorrow and rolling into the games on saturday.

2nd day of training for Borneo 7s

Today was another long day of hard work. It was definitely the hardest day of training so far at camp and one of the hottest. We started off the day with our usual morning practice. This consisted of agility drills, timed runs, and sprints. After about 2 hours of that, we finally went into ball work. We decided it would be best for our training if we ran our sprints first and became fatigued from it then went into ball work after so that we can practice handling the ball and making proper passes while we are tired.

After training we went to Kenny Rogers (again). I got some laundry done and soon enough we were off to another session. This session proved to be a lot more exciting than the previous days though. We were asked to play in a 4 team touch tournament with the Malaysian National Team, a top Malaysian club team, and the Borneo Eagles. We had our first match against the Borneo Eagles. They were hands down one of the best group of rugby players i have ever faced. They were all kiwis and all professional rugby players from the NPC, which is a top level in New Zealand and a feeder for leagues such as the Super 14. We were all a little star struck at first when playing against them as some of the boys even recognized players for the Super 14s Rugby League on TV. After the first game though we got all the nervous out and began to finally play rugby like we know how to. We played an improved match against the Malaysian national team and even better against the malaysian club team. It proved to be a great experience in the end and we even got to meet a Hong Kong 7s Legend, Tomasi Cama. He was coaching the Borneo Eagles team that we played and refereeing the games. Tomasi was one of the best fijian players ever to play and scored on of the most famous tries in rugby history. here is a clip of him back in his prime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU1o4U2jep4

We ended the day with a team dinner at Pizza Hut and another visit to our tailoring friend who only took about 45 mins in total to measure and tailor our entire teams jerseys which once again proves that filipinos are hard workers. After another long day its finally time for bed, because the day starts off bright and early tomorrow for 2 a day training sessions, but what keeps us going is that it is 1 more day closer to the tournament and finally being able to showcase what we have been training for.

1st day of training for Borneo 7s Tour

Today was the first official day of the Borneo 7s Tour. We have just completed a successful tour in Brunei where we placed 2nd to Malaysia. There we got all the little kinks out of our game and are finally starting to gel together as a team. I think coming in 2nd was a fairly big accomplishment considering the fact that most of our team had only met 2 days before the Brunei 7s started and had only 1 training session together compared to teams like India that have spent the last 2 months together in South Africa training in a rugby Academy for this event and Malaysia who have been together as a team for almost 15 years.

The day started off at 845am today where we met for a team breakfast of runny eggs, fried rice, fried chicken legs, baked bean, and some sort of curry (compliments of King Park Hotel in KK). Needless to say this didnt sit well with some of the boys during our 3 hour conditioning practice today. However, a sick stomach wasnt going to stop us from having a breakthrough practice. There was an aire of excitement and anxiousness in our play, probably because we were able to see the stadium we were playing at before practice. Many of us have never played in a venue so large. They are expecting over 10,000 people to watch our games this weekend. With these huge crowd come huge teams of course. Our bracket includes China, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), and India. Other notable teams that we will have to face after our pool play are Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Japan (the top team in Asia). There will be 16 different countries competing all with hopes of winning, as whoever wins will qualify for the premier tournament in the world, the Hong Kong 7s where teams like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, USA, and Fiji compete.

After our first training session filled with endless sprints and drills we had some free time to roam the city. We were able to see the Center Square which is the major shopping center of KK. We had a quick bite to eat at Kenny Rogers then we were off to our classroom session where we discussed what we did well in the last tournament and what we needed to improve on for the next tournament. Things like trust, communication, and defense were main points that were covered. We then headed to the final practice of the day which was a light run through of tackling drills and set piece play. We ended the day with a team dinner at little italy and finding a filipino tailor who agreed to custom tailor our national team kit in 1 day for us for the steep price of $3 US dollars per person. Not a bad deal.

(Borneo 7s Stadium)