Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

TIED IN AUSTRALIA 20th May 2008

"I fell asleep last night at 8:30pm, a full hour after Jonelle, and I was pretty impressed with myself. Supper had been an interesting experience the previous evening as almost everyone was borderline falling asleep in their meals. And that was at 7:00pm!!! The only problem with going to sleep that early is the fact that you then wake-up early. This is how it works for most people anyway.

I was wide awake and ready to go at midnight last night. Consequently, I was not a happy camper this morning, but managed to grab a few more hours before giving up and getting up at around 0530 am. I puttered around, killing time, then headed to breakfast at 7:00am. I was not alone on this strange schedule and joined Amy V, Erin, Tank and Mar for both breakfast and the following trip to Starbucks!

It is important that at this stage, I mention the fact that my amazing roomie was still sleeping all this time, I am insanely jealous. She was out for the night by 7:30pm and slept right up until I woke her up just after 08:0-00am. Insanity.

Tank, Mar, Amy, Erin and I meanwhile, marched the four blocks from the hotel to the local mall for our coffee fixes. I am usually a spectator on these trips as I am not a huge coffee drinker, but I changed my tune this morning. Even though I got quite a good sleep last night, I was still in a sleepy fog, and needed a bit of a java kick in the backside to get me going. We passed a procession of staff and players on their way to the same place on our way home.

On our team walk and stretch we stopped on a nearby campus and were treated to a bit of a close up and personal time with some local wildlife, namely some parrots. Sophie put it best when she commented on how such beautiful birds can make such horrible noises.

While stretching, most of us got in some pretty decent pictures of the parrots and parakeets, although I have more than most as I loaned my camera to snap happy Tancredi. She was already in my bad books after she had spent at least ten minutes trying to teach the birds to say "hello." This is frustrating, and even more so when you take into consideration that she did all this in her version, of an Australian accent.

Our game against the Matildas is at 2:45 pm. this afternoon. We are all really looking forward to it. We have been told that we are going to meet the Prime Minister before the game, and I am pretty excited about this. I am looking forward to meeting Kevin Rudd - yes, I had to look up his name, although the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe our staff was referring to the Prime minister of the local club or something. To meet the country's Prime Minister sounds like too big a deal for our soccer team!

Our starting line up is going to be Karina in net, with Robyn, Emily Zurrer, Martina and Kiss in the backline, Brit, Sophie, Clare and Mel in the midfield and Sinc and Amy Vermeulen up top. The game is going to be an exciting one and I am looking forward to our team getting to make amends for the butt kicking we were handed down in the States.

As you may know by now, the game ended in a 0-0 tie. I thought the match was really well played by both teams, and there were some really great plays out there today. Even though we didn’t get the win, I thought Canada was the stronger team on the field, and we had the better opportunities. Of course this statement has a double edge. We made the opportunities, which is good, but we also missed finishing them, something we need to start to improve. We must finish our chances.

The highlight of the day other than the soccer, (sorry to coach Even), was getting to meet Harry Kewell. I am a huge Liverpool fan so when I saw Harry just standing by the field I was, to put it mildly, thrilled. I don’t think I embarrassed anyone too badly, other than myself that is, but I did get my picture taken with him. Thanks to manager Les for introducing me and asking if he would pose for a photo or two, SOOOOOOOOOO exciting. Oh, we also got to meet the actual Australian Prime Minister. PM of the country not the soccer association, and this was also pretty cool, but paled in comparison with my Kewell meeting. Sorry Mr. Rudd.

Now I'm off to shower…… and change all my profile pictures to me and Harry!

As a quick aside, I have just received an e-mail from Marnie McBean, letting me know what kind of bird I was complaining about in yesterday’s journal. She has done the research and tells me it was probably a "Kookaburra." The picture doesn’t look exactly right, but the definition of their call does - " Kookaburras are best known for their unmistakable call, which is uncannily like loud, echoing human laughter — good-natured, if rather hysterical, maniacal cackling." Thanks Marnie