Sunday morning we were down to business, heading to De Eendracht for our first training session of the tour. After going through so many time zones over the past few days, our body clocks had one more adjustment to make as summer time started in the Netherlands this morning and local clocks went forward one hour.
At the hall, our initial focus was on one on one, then on team defence. It was a positive session. De Eendracht is a modern facility with a floor that provides excellent grip. It is markedly larger than the venues we are used to training in at home, which took awhile to become accustomed to, though by the end of the session most of the players had found their range.
We have come away on tour with more niggly injuries than we would have chosen, and physio Bevan is set for a busy week helping everyone to manage these. Jakob’s meniscus is the cause of greatest concern at present. Everyone else was able to take more or less full part in the session.
Following the first training session, we kicked off our Korfball tour tradition of awarding our team mascot ‘Koru, the Korfball Kiwi’ to a member of the group to look after for the next 24 hours. This tradition was started back in 2010 when mentors Grahame and Doreen Felton gifted Koru to us. In continuing with past protocols, Bevan explained the relevance and special meaning behind Koru to our new national representatives and then awarded Koru to Jakob for showing true DOS spirit during the previous evenings match and wearing a DOS club shirt in support.
After lunch our DOS ’46 hosts had scheduled an outdoor ‘boot camp’ for us. However, despite the clocks changing, the weather in Nijeveen is anything but summer at the moment with rain and wind making outdoor activity less enticing than it ought to be for those used to (ahem) our more clement South Pacific climate, so, unfortunately we had to cancel this.
In the evening we had our first practice game, against a scratch team of experienced DOS ’46 players, including many from the families that are hosting us, mainly organised by the Buiten family, Nico, Lammita, Milanne and Koen, who live, eat, drink, breath and sleep DOS ‘46. Our main focus was on implementing the defence strategies we had worked on in the morning. Coach Mark stresses that, while we are able to put these in place in training and during games, we need to make sure they remain our default option when fatigued or under pressure. Our opponents’ experience and skill made this a tough challenge, though we did make progress with it and the Buitens, and our other opponents, were encouraging about our potential to build on this during the rest of our week with them.
After two 20 minute halves, half the New Zealand players swapped shirts with their hosts/opponents and we enjoyed a tremendous, light hearted 15 minute ‘mix up’ game to finish the session, and our first day at the business end of our preparation for our big tournament on a high.
Tot morgen
Rob and Bevan
At the hall, our initial focus was on one on one, then on team defence. It was a positive session. De Eendracht is a modern facility with a floor that provides excellent grip. It is markedly larger than the venues we are used to training in at home, which took awhile to become accustomed to, though by the end of the session most of the players had found their range.
We have come away on tour with more niggly injuries than we would have chosen, and physio Bevan is set for a busy week helping everyone to manage these. Jakob’s meniscus is the cause of greatest concern at present. Everyone else was able to take more or less full part in the session.
Following the first training session, we kicked off our Korfball tour tradition of awarding our team mascot ‘Koru, the Korfball Kiwi’ to a member of the group to look after for the next 24 hours. This tradition was started back in 2010 when mentors Grahame and Doreen Felton gifted Koru to us. In continuing with past protocols, Bevan explained the relevance and special meaning behind Koru to our new national representatives and then awarded Koru to Jakob for showing true DOS spirit during the previous evenings match and wearing a DOS club shirt in support.
After lunch our DOS ’46 hosts had scheduled an outdoor ‘boot camp’ for us. However, despite the clocks changing, the weather in Nijeveen is anything but summer at the moment with rain and wind making outdoor activity less enticing than it ought to be for those used to (ahem) our more clement South Pacific climate, so, unfortunately we had to cancel this.
In the evening we had our first practice game, against a scratch team of experienced DOS ’46 players, including many from the families that are hosting us, mainly organised by the Buiten family, Nico, Lammita, Milanne and Koen, who live, eat, drink, breath and sleep DOS ‘46. Our main focus was on implementing the defence strategies we had worked on in the morning. Coach Mark stresses that, while we are able to put these in place in training and during games, we need to make sure they remain our default option when fatigued or under pressure. Our opponents’ experience and skill made this a tough challenge, though we did make progress with it and the Buitens, and our other opponents, were encouraging about our potential to build on this during the rest of our week with them.
After two 20 minute halves, half the New Zealand players swapped shirts with their hosts/opponents and we enjoyed a tremendous, light hearted 15 minute ‘mix up’ game to finish the session, and our first day at the business end of our preparation for our big tournament on a high.
Tot morgen
Rob and Bevan