Here we go - a groin

Thursday 25th and Friday 26th

The view from our balcony is quite good in the daylight as well, with views of part of the river.

We had our training run scheduled for 2pm so there was no rush this morning. This is a big improvement over previous years where they seem to delight in giving the WA teams early morning slots, either through malice or stupidity, ignoring the jet lag factor. Obviously better organised this time.

I headed to the supermarket and bought some water, soft drink, staminade, milk and cereal, as the other 2 were off on a walk. Later we returned for a bigger shop.

Later in the morning, I set off with my laptop looking for an Internet cafe where I could access a wireless network. There is one near by but no wireless and you can't plug in your own laptop apparently. I then wandered all around and eventually up to the mall with various directions from people including the visitors centre and finally found a travel agent/ internet cafe that looked promising. They were offering 1.25 hours for $5 (better then the 15 mins in the hotel) but there was n't enough time before the meeting to take it up. By the time we got back from training it was too late as well.

This was the first time we were all together, since Alene lives here and some of us, including myself, had not been able to get to the training sessions. Unfortunately, in one of the early exercises I over stretched and strain a muscle in my groin. I was able to continue training but some movements were painful.

That night 7 of us went out for dinner, wandering first down to the pier, where the restaurants were too expensive and fancy for us and finished up in the mall at an Irish Pub. It was quite reasonably priced and had a decent variety from grills to pies, fish and pasta.

After we got back we watched some episodes of Heroes that I'd bought on DVD.

I was up early the next day and at 8 we met downstairs for a walk. We headed down to the river and walked through the park to the board walk over the mangroves, then back along the pathway towards the Story Bridge. Then back past the restaurants at the poier we saw last night and then back to the hotel. On the way we passed the 40's with 4 of their "virgins" doing their stint in the dresses. This is a tradition for the state teams.

It was just before 9 when we got back and I headed for the travel agent to get on the Net. Unfortunately they don't open till 10 so I again chased down other options. The Starbucks had wireless but it was a pricey as the room ($7 for 30 mins) so I decided to buy a week's worth at the hotel instead. At least it's now available full time.

Our manager, Marg, has bought a netball trophy called Eliza and a netball skirt as a daily "award" for something outstanding, good or bad each day. She gave it to the captain, Macca, for the first day without any reason a]other than she was to lead from the front. Macca followed up by getting lost in the car park, so in fact deserved the first award. The skirt is to be warn during the warm ups.

Our game was at 1 against the second Queensland side. This is presumably the weaker of the two and appears to be older as well. I was told they are trying to get a 60+ division started and these girls would be the Queensland team. I started on the right and my groin went in the first few minutes when I ran down the side and into the circle. I stayed on for a bit longer, but couldn't really run. I did have 2 short corner shots. The first hit the goalies pad and the second went in. I then subbed myself off and didn't play again. We had most of the play but could not score in the rest of the first half. In the second, Macca scored off a short corner and then Betty deflected one in after a cross from Lorraine. Alene who was in goals in the second half said she touched the ball once. Jessie didn't have much more to do in the first half. We had most of the play and should definitely have one but I wonder if 3-0 will turn out to be a low score against this side.

I had a massage after the game which didn't do any harm but I'm not sure if it helped much either. I was last into the showers and missed out on the fruit.

On the way back Bev and Marg stopped at the fish market and I bought 4 large crabs for our room. We cleaned then and cracked the claws then packed them in disposable containers to take to the game. As usual tasty and messy. We watched the 40s in a very good game against Tassie which they won 2-0 then the 50s who went down 2-3. Jillie scored both but the second was a brilliant deflection from a hard hit into the circle.

Our 45s played early and lost 0-2 and the 35s had a bye.