Day 1 - Days 2 and 3
Day 2: Thursday April 1, 2010
Thursday morning was a near repeat of Wednesday - we woke and headed down for breakfast before joining the rest of the team for a walk, stretch and swim.
Following the walk I took part in a midfielders meeting. “Harves” (Robert Harvey) and “Bomber” (Mark Riley) run these meetings. These meetings are normally held in a hotel whenever we’re interstate - in Melbourne, they’re usually conducted prior to the final training session.
Most team members attend the midfield meeting as most of them venture through the centre at some stage during the game, and the defensive and forwards meetings were also held on the Thursday morning.
After the meeting I headed back to my room and watched a little TV before heading off on another walk with “Gibbsy” (Bryce Gibbs). We then returned to the hotel for lunch, spending a good hour or so in the lunch room prior to heading upstairs to begin preparations for the game.
We then made our way to the ground at around 5:30pm, which allowed us a good 90 minutes to prepare for the match. The Brisbane reserves team was playing Mt Gravatt beforehand, so I took in a bit of that contest before heading back in for our team meeting.
The conditions out on the Gabba there were pretty slippery and did take some time to get used to them. You might have noticed that a few boys wore wrist bands to try and stop the sweat. In the end the game was pretty disappointing - the effort and intensity was clearly there, but we didn’t make the most of our opportunities, particularly in the first half and, together with the influence of big J Brown the result went the way of the Lions.
The post-math routine didn’t go to plan either. The bus that was booked to take us back to the hotel was nowhere to be seen, and through some quick thinking of some of our staffers at the ground we all ended up boarding taxis back to the hotel.
Once back at the hotel, the players made a beeline straight to the pool for recovery and then headed upstairs for our post-game meal. By this time it was well after midnight, but because I find it very difficult to sleep after a game as there’s such an adrenalin rush, I watched a bit of TV and, in the end, would have only got a few hours kip.
Day 3: Friday April 2, 2010
Before boarding the bus for the airport at 8.30am I had to squeeze in another pool recovery session, as well as some breakfast. It was a beautiful morning in Brisbane, and with the weather the way it was it would have been nice to spend the day up there.
We got to the airport just before nine. After checking in I grabbed a coffee and before you knew it I was on board the Melbourne-bound flight.
Losing the extra hour due to daylight saving meant we all lobbed at Tullamarine just after 1.00pm and I got home at around 2pm.
So there goes our Brisbane trip. We now we look forward to taking on the Bombers at the MCG on Saturday night. It’s our first home game for the season so we want to see as many Carlton fans as possible fronting up for the game.
