NASC – Day 1

I left Austin last night and flew through St. Louis and finally arrived in Minneapolis, MN around midnight. I was supposed to get in around ten, but some crazy weather made the flying a little treacherous, so they flew around it. So I met up with a few other players from the team (their flights had been delayed as well) and we headed to our hotel.

We are in the same Super 8 that we stayed in last year for the exhibition matches against USA A and Midwest B. It kind of feels like home as we had our meetings in the indoor pool room and demolished breakfast this morning in the little breakfast room.

Last night was a rough night of sleeping, the first night at a different place is always difficult for me. I laid there going over the plays and visualizing everything and couldn’t turn my brain off. I think I finally dozed off around 2:30. Luckily we didn’t have training until 11am…so I didn’t have to really think.

We had a team meeting at 9am where we discussed a few things. Geoff our forwards coach had some personal issues and couldn’t attend after all. So they had replaced him with Mark and Wendy Cook was brought in to help with the backs. I was sad that Geoff was not attending, he is a HUGE guy with a big heart and always positive. I loved being coached by a real live Kiwi! He played for them in the 80’s, but the replacement of Wendy Cook was a big attribute as well she is a very experienced player and a great coach.

Anyways, we started training at 11am with our usual skill work and dynamic warm up. Mark got my hopes up when he had me and Edwards switching out at scrumhalf drills…but when we finally split I was put at the flyhalf position. I know scrumhalfs and flyhalfs are supposed to be interchangeable…but I like wearing the #9 and I LOVE being with the pack. I had come up here knowing that I may be playing flyhalf, but still was hoping I would be in my comfort zone.

We have a few players that are playing out of position and that has been interesting to watch develop. I am playing flyhalf instead of scrumhalf, Melissa is playing wing instead of center, Lynelle is playing center instead of flanker and the list goes on. But these changes are all about the combinations as Mark keeps reminding us. If we can find the right combination it doesn’t matter what position we play.

Training was really good as we were able to simplify some of the things that were confusing everyone in Kansas City and our timing has improved IMMENSELY. You can tell we are starting to trust each other and feel each other out more. I think we will be really successful on Friday against the South. We are a very talented team that has a lot of fun off the field and we need to bring that discipline and fun to the field on Friday.

Well its about 10 minutes till our next training, so gotta go! I will try and post some pictures later this week.

West 2007 All Stars Roster

KJ Abel- Ruch
Molly Albano
Breanna Alexander
Sara Edwards
Molly Rose Graves
Joy Hernandez
Allegra Howell
Devin Keller
Jen Kelley
Kim Klahn
Alena Kolarsky
Jenny Kuchar
Lynelle Kugler
Jaime Lange
Melissa McKibben
Cody Monroe
Angie Poe
Mandy Rasmussen
Erin Riley
Sarah Webel
Lindsay Wieczorek
Katie Wurst
Wendy Young

Coaches
Mark Bullock
Geoff Old
Susan Stabler
Wendy Cook