Bring your 'sac de couchage', folks!

It’s been a slightly different week to normal. Team training was moved to Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and for the first time pretty much the whole squad is back fit again. We have lost a 2^nd row (the one with whom I made the blond hair pledge) to illness which is a real shame but apart from that our ‘1^st team’ should be on the pitch against Toulon.

I have allowed my weights to fall by the wayside as the season nears its end. This is not through a dislike of lifting weights but a shift in priorities. I’m nursing too many knocks (wrist and ankle) to push through weight sessions. I just do what I can to remain sharp, lots of short sprints with Serge and hurling medicine balls against walls. I’m no longer interested in getting stronger or bigger – we have a month left, maximum, for goodness sakes. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting playing solitaire on my laptop (though win percentage is up to 15%). My focus is now on solidifying my body to make sure that each of the following Sundays my body is in the best shape it can be. We may well get knocked out but I’m making sure I’ll be there at the end for the pressure kicks. So instead of doing curls for girls, I’m doing proprioception work for my ankle ligaments to ensure they don’t break down, passing so many electrical impulses through myself my hair stands up and meditating on so many wobble boards my balance is now off the scale.

Tomorrow morning is the beginning of our ‘stage’. We’re spending Saturday and Sunday as a team, training, drinking, eating, barbequeing, and sleeping together. Yes, in the changing room. We begin out near Versailles, at La Boulie, more known for being an exclusive golf club, possibly the Racing Club de France club. There was great ribbing of our more aristocratic players who will have sampled the delightful greens. We train pretty much all day then all traverse Paris for Houilles, one of the nicer northern suburbs where we’ll barbecue and celebrate the birthday of ‘Betsen’ the crazy flanker. With sleeping bags at the ready we’ll pack down in the changing room and spend the night together, creating the sort of team unity that Toulon can only dream of! Sunday is more training then home to carte d’or vanilla in the early afternoon. That’s the plan, anyway.

I managed to bump the flatmate off the sofa this morning so I could enjoy the royal wedding. I closed all inter-connecting doors and sung to my heart’s content. I was gauging the mood towards the big day on Thursday and a surprising number were very interested. Who knows if they became frustrated and regretful over the events of 1789, cursing the revolutionaries, Robespierre et al. Or probably just more jealous of us not having someone like Sarko as a head of state. The only person I came across who was as excited as me was my Fijian friend who was still high with excitement this afternoon.

Even if my superficial mood and attitude to training fluctuates from the most motivated I’ve been all season to slipping back into the early season malaise, there is an inner drive that is appearing that I haven’t experienced since a similar stage in a competition last year. It’s more personal than last year, I don’t feel the same pressure from a community, and the way I interact with my teammates is different. That’s normal and to be expected. Initiatives like spending 36 hours in each others company aren’t things to dread. These guys are no just longer 21 weird foreign guys, and I’m sure the sharing of the changing room floor will be an absolute pleasure, bringing our l’esprit d’équipe to a level that Toulon won’t be able to live with...