For the next few days I am going to continue the trend set by Matt Corry (Ireland 2008) who was at the European Championships last year. Matt picked a player at random to write on his blog each day during the Euros. So this year I will take the honours and start off with our training camp and trip to Scotland.
Well all I can say about the last few days up at Naomh Olaf is wow! It has been a dramatic turn around and amazing to see the skills the younger players have developing coming full circle over the last few years. In a lot of ways I have a lot of pride and admiration for the work of everyone to develop into lacrosse players. Our camp was fast, high tempo, and everyone picked up all the sets, plays, packages very quickly.
We had four days with the last two being full out sessions of 5.5 hours of training each day. Our coaches drilling home our offense and defensive sets and plays. Though training camp wasn’t all business as we had opportunity to enjoy a team meal on Saturday night at Kiely’s of Donnybrook.
So after a few days of hard labour at our training camp we embarked out at 4am to head for the airport in Dublin. After meeting up with the rest of the team we checked and headed to the gate at Dublin Airport. After a quick 45 minute flight we arrived in Edinburgh and boarded our coach to head to our accommodation at Fettes College or ‘Hogwarts’ as we have affectionately started calling it.
Most of us have spent today in relaxation mode and getting acclimated with our surroundings. We are sharing our accommodation with the Welsh team and for me personally it was good to catch up with some old friends and team mates.
We had a team run and stretch at 4pm led by John Cavanagh. We cleaned up and headed to the meal hall for our first team meal. By this point the Scots and Welsh teams have almost completely arrived and were also eating meals. After dinner Paddy O’Leary was named by the coaches as our game day captain for tomorrow’s opener. Once we finished our meal we headed to the steps of the world famous Fettes College for a team photo.
We have a relaxed night and are left to our own devices and it would seem most are relaxing and preparing for tomorrow’s opening game against Scotland who seem to have a good squad and will be a good test of where we stand.
Eireann Abu !
Dublin Women's Lacrosse Club