Cactus' WCC diary

[nacho]

Cactus is posting a diary of all the goings on in england with the boys and i thought id share day one if no one has seen it on melbournestorm.com.au
big article but worth the read

DAY 1 - WELL DONE HEATHROW

Each day of Melbourne Storm's English adventure, media manager "Cactus" Chris Couch will bring you an inside view of exactly what the group are getting up to...


Monday, February 18th:


The squad assembled at Tullamarine airport at 10pm for the trip of a lifetime. Twenty-one players and nine staff were heading off to the cold, and grey of northern England to take on the Leeds Rhinos in the World Club Challenge, the winner earning the right to call themselves the best club side in the world. Although most had been overseas before, for a lot of the players the full extent of their “world tours” were to New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa or Gove in the Northern Territory. In fact, as I was sitting next to Will Chambers who hails form the outback Northern Territory town, for much of the journey he was marveling to himself how he couldn’t quite believe a boy had come from where he was, to where he was going in such a short space of time. And he’s right.


The signs for a smooth trip weren’t good when upon arrival we were all told the plane had been delayed for take off by 30 minutes. Was this a sign of things to come?


Normally when the team plays interstate or in New Zealand, we are always last on the plane, sitting in the departure lounge until all of the other passengers have boarded. On this occasion I’m pretty sure we might have been the first on board. This was probably due to a combination of heading to England for such a big game, and flying business class. There really are no other possibilities.


Once on the plane assistant coach Stephen Kearney (Mooksy) came to the sudden realisation his phone had fallen out of his pocket in the Qantas Club Lounge. Given he was planning on talking to many of his fellow countrymen regarding his World Cup plans for New Zealand while he was in London, and their phone numbers were in his phone, this was a major catastrophe. However, there seemed to be a large number of players expressing their concern which led to Mooksy believing something was up! But they all protested their innocence and the worry began to set in.


The players were told, in order to keep jetlag at bay as much as possible, they should stay awake for the first leg to Hong Kong, and sleep as much as they can during the second leg to London. Before the plane had even begun taxiing out to the runway, new recruit Ben MacDougall had happily fallen asleep sitting up in his chair. Maybe he hadn’t heard the instructions form the medical staff? And didn’t he know the chairs in business class fold down into a bed? To his credit though, Ben managed to sleep for pretty much the entire journey, blowing away any notion he needed to save his sleep for the second leg.


Everyone gave it their best shot to stay awake for the nine hour flight to Hong Kong. Most failed. Playing cards and computer games, eating, watching movies, reading magazines or generally annoying others were the common strategies for staying awake. However, only a few of the boys actually managed to make it the whole way.


Once in Hong Kong the boys made their way to the Qantas Club for more food, a quick shower and a stretch. Unfortunately only a small number of players actually managed to get a shower in. The staff in the Qantas Club, for some peculiar reason, insisted on cleaning the shower area after every shower. This meant only a handful of players and other passengers got to freshen up.


Back on the plane for the second leg to London and it wasn’t long before everyone had eaten (again) and nodded off to sleep (including MacDougall). Somewhere along the way, while searching through his folder to do some work for the big game against Leeds next Friday night (England time), Stephen found his mobile phone. Considering he was across the aisle to me, the beaming smile on his face was hard to miss. However, he made me promise not to tell anyone, given earlier he’d accused most of the players of playing a prank on him. Needless to say it wasn’t long before everyone knew and he copped a deserved pasting.


About an hour out from touching down in London, everyone started getting ready for the next leg, a connecting flight to Manchester. Players were packing up their bags, changing into their Melbourne Storm gear and filling out landing cards. All except MacDougall who was still fast asleep! He thought it would be much better to do all of this after the plane had landed and was taxiing to the arrival bay. He didn’t seem to realise this was a time to be seated with his seatbelt firmly fastened.


It was during this period of packing up I realised I’d left my laptop in the Qantas Club Lounge back in Melbourne. What a nightmare! How was I going to do my work? On leaving the plane a Qantas staff member informed me my laptop had been found and was there waiting for someone to pick it up. A quick text message to Herald Sun photographer Colleen Petch who was flying over two days later to cover the Storm’s quest for world domination, and my laptop would be on its way again. Thankfully Anthony Quinn brought his laptop with him so I have access to the internet so I can do my job for the next couple of days.


From this moment on the real nightmare began!


Firstly, the security seemed unable to come to grips with the concept of ushering a large group of people from one point to another without allowing everyone else to come along for the ride as well, thus making it extremely difficult for us to a) stay together, and b) do what we had to do in order to make our connecting flight. The security were even overheard saying they were told what they had to do (usher us through customs and to our next flight), but didn’t quite know how to make it happen. This did not auger well for what was to come.


Once we’d arrived at check-in for the English domestic leg, again the Heathrow staff didn’t seem capable of checking in a large group. Had they not heard of group check-in before? Considering it’s one of the largest airports in the world, they’d had experience with sporting teams before, surely? If they had they were doing a wonderful impression of this being their first time. We stood around doing absolutely nothing for what seemed a ridiculous amount of time, all the while the time was fast approaching when our flight to Manchester would be departing.


Finally on the move, and with only a few minutes to spare, an overzealous security man (and I use the word security loosely) decided he would allow everyone else through to the departure lounges (except for us) whether they were boarding our plane, which had long ago called for final passengers to board, or not. Needless to say our flight to Manchester was late departing. Well done to the Heathrow staff on a job well done!


But the worst was yet to come.


The flight to Manchester took no longer than 40 minutes, and given we had been on the go for approximately 32 hours when we landed, we were all very happy about that. That was until we found out all of our personal luggage, and all of the team luggage, was still in London and we wouldn’t be seeing it until the middle of the night at the earliest, and more than likely mid-morning tomorrow. Everyone except for Ryan Hoffman that is who’s training bag had miraculously survived Heathrow’s final attempt at sending us over the edge.


But what Heathrow hadn’t bargained on was encountering a group of people determined to take anything they could throw at us on the chin, with our eyes firmly on the ultimate prize which was up for grabs less than a fortnight away.


A 90-minute bus trip to Leeds finally saw us arrive at our hotel a massive 36 hours after we had walked out of our home doors in Melbourne. With a quick swim and a stretch behind us (and a shower for those who had missed out in Hong Kong) it was time for a hot meal and an early night to bed. After all, we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow and there’s nothing the good people at Heathrow or anyone else can do to stop us now.


P.S - I'll put some photos of our trip up here on a daily basis as well...just as soon as my camera arrives!

[Marcus Bai]

Awesome!! thanks for posting that mate!! can you keep posting updates here?

[Super Cronk]

off to a great start then huh? 

[nacho]

Awesome!! thanks for posting that mate!! can you keep posting updates here?

i will post them if no one else beats me to it

[coupy73]

Bloody incompatent poms!!!!

(i can say that now I have aussie citizenship, and before you say it yes they do give citizenship to anybody these days ))

[Mike_The_Undertaker]

Awesome!! thanks for posting that mate!! can you keep posting updates here?

i will post them if no one else beats me to it

Yep do that please.

Good reading

[Super Cronk]

cant wait for the pics.

[Cronk7]

Im suprised how detailed and expressive it is to be honest.Something like that would be sensored by the aerial ping pong clubs.

[lotti]

I wonder if any of the Heathrow Staff are Leeds fans.

[Thunderstruck]

That was bloody frank and hilarious!

[Surandy]

Damn that was a good read, I sure hope Couchy can keep up the high standard for the remainder of his diary.

[Anonymous]

beat ya 

DAY 2 - GUESS WHAT DALLAS?

We woke this morning to the news our luggage from Heathrow had in fact not arrived overnight as had been promised, and we would have to wait until almost lunch time to see some of it. It turns out the computer that handles luggage identification and their destinations crashed and 10,000 items of luggage were stuck at Heathrow while their owners were scattered all over the world with nothing but their carry on luggage to get them by.

Some of the boys were suffering the effects of jet lag after their first night in the hotel. As a result, the likes of Jeff Lima, Antonio Kaufusi, Adam Blair and Liam Foran had been on the table tennis table since 4.30am, while several others had been in the gym for a run and a swim not long after that. However, most had a good night’s sleep which is a good sign with the first game only two days away.

After breakfast the forwards went for a walk from the hotel to the gym for their first training session of the trip. It was cold, very cold, but the walk was quite pleasant and it was the first time we’d had a chance to get outside and have a bit of a look around. And to be fair, Leeds is quite a nice looking city. Brett White decided he would be the official team photographer today, and considering he had completed a photographer course in grade seven, he was clearly the most qualified.

After the forwards were done, the backs arrived for their session. Upon our return to the hotel, we learned that a lot of the bags had been delivered. Many were lucky enough to have all of their luggage returned, others had some returned, while an unlucky few were left empty handed from the first delivery. We were lucky enough to have had our luggage insured by the club, and as a result those who hadn’t received all of their luggage were given some money to go and buy themselves some essentials - clothes, socks, undies, toiletries and anything else they may need.

After lunch it was time for our first press conference of the tour in the build-up to the game against Halifax on Friday night, and the World Club Challenge against Leeds a week later. Matt Geyer, Dallas Johnson, Brett White and coach Craig Bellamy were the first to face the British media, and as always they were faultless. They answered every question posed, and stayed behind for as long as needed afterwards for one-on-one interviews and various photos.

During the interview, Bellamy was asked who would be captain against Halifax, to which he replied that it would be “Dallas Johnson”. After a short pause, Bellamy then turned to Dallas and said “congratulations” as he had yet to inform the tough lock forward, admitting he forgot to do so in the team meeting yesterday. Gathering from the ear-to-ear grin on Dallas’s face he was happy to hear the news, even if it had been delivered in an unconventional manner.

With training over for the day and the media commitments concluded, the players were given a couple of hours to go and explore Leeds, or buy some necessities if their luggage hadn’t arrived yet.

A quick dip in the pool and a relaxing massage later and the players were tucking into their dinner in the team room. While eating their dinner, another pile of bags were delivered to the delight of everyone in the room, especially those who only a couple of hours earlier had been given money to go and buy themselves some clothes!

Unfortunately, considering not all of the players’ luggage was delivered, there were still some who’s training gear and boots hadn’t arrived. The training gear was easy to sort out as the players were able to share some amongst themselves, but the boots are a different matter. A quick trip to the local JJB Sports Sport after dinner solved that problem, even if the new boots were less than ideal.

Another day done and only a handful of bags and team luggage is missing. Let’s hope tomorrow can bring an end of the great luggage fiasco.

should check out the pics on the site too, johnsons grin is huuuge 

[nacho]

i like how storm have been doing this, giving the fans a feel of being there eventhou where half a world away.
congrats DJ

[lotti]

I love it too, if Kearney is doing this to the guys imagine the pranks he'll pull on the Kiwi team.

[Bourbon Rat]

i like how storm have been doing this, giving the fans a feel of being there even thou where half a world away.
congrats DJ

Shame there isn't a Fan fax/email so we can return the favour 

Captain DJ

May the Storm reign over West Yorkshire