The Ireland Sevens squad’s video analyst Vinny Hammond has been keeping us up to date with news from the camp in Dubai. The squad paid their first visit to the Sevens stadium today and James Coughlan got a Dutch treat!
As expected, I woke up once again to twelve urine samples arriving at the door this morning from 7.30am onwards.
Once ‘FOGS’ (our fitness and conditioning coach Fergal O’Callaghan), had done the necessary, we got a quick breakfast and headed to our first session of the day at Dubai’s new purpose built sevens venue, ‘The Sevens.’
The stadium was quite impressive, and is expected to be sold out on all three days.
We had a full session on one of the back pitches and also had a look at the facilities available to us on matchdays, which include a players lounge area with bean bags and couches, a swimming pool and also a plunge pool.
The ground looked really impressive, with a huge amount of effort still going into the finishing touches.
Team captain Kieran Cambell tried to conduct an interview, but it was not long before the lads made sure the only thing you could hear was their finest singing voices.
After lunch, we were back on the road to another local school for our second session.
The Dutch ladies team were on the pitch when we arrived and took exception to James Coughlan walking across their grid.
James, in turn, took exception to the fact that they whistled him off, so a mini Irish-Dutch stand-off ensued!
This hasn’t been James’ only clanger of the trip…yesterday he alerted the staff at the aquarium in a frenzy, to a fish he belived to be stuck between two rocks.
Naturally, he was told that the fish in question was well capable of swimming out when he was done with the shade!
Our liaison officer, now known as Slick Rick, has been great in helping us out wherever he can.
This evening, he organised a trip to the Emirates Mall – apparently one of the biggest shopping malls in the world, complete with a 400 metre indoor ski slope and snow machines.
We had a wander around before heading back for an early night. Needless to say, with a shoping mall containing 14 separate exits, 670 shops and four stories, Kyle ‘Sat Nav’ Tonetti was again advised to hold the fort back at the hotel.
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