Read Hayley Crawford’s exclusive online blog direct from the Westfield Matildas’ camp in Canberra.
Day Three:
The day gets under way nice and early with a 9 o’clock training session. It’s quite cool here in the nation’s capital, so we are all pretty keen to get stuck into training.
We go through our warm-up with our strength and conditioner ‘Macca’ as most of us are getting tight and sore by the day. Training consists of 4v3 defending drills to overload the penalty box and I must admit the defenders did quite well but some pretty nice goals were scored (which always annoys us defenders).
We then went into a full pitch game to open up the flow, and the lungs! A great session by the girls which was rewarded with the afternoon off!
Most of us headed across to watch the Canberra Capitals women’s basketball team play and this was great, great atmosphere. The girls really pull a good crowd and put on a great show. A nice change to a hectic camp schedule.
One more day to go.
Hayley
Day Two:
Friday started out with what is the calendar event for all female football players: “photos”! This gives us all an opportunity to spend that little bit longer in the mirror before heading out to training (whether we like to admit it it or not).
We have individual and team photos for the AIS website, then into our first session for the day.
Training was quite intense and had a great feeling, the girls were really buzzing and some quality football was on show. We trained for a solid 2hrs then hit the recovery centre, which is possibly the least favourite aspect of camp. For all of you who aren’t aware, recovery consists of freezing cold plunge pools followed by hot spa – 3 minutes in each, 3 times…not fun!
Session two was competitive games which had a technical aspect. This gets quite competitive, as you can image with 30 ultra eager girls of which none like losing.
My team did quite well so I’ll go to bed happy and a winner!
See you all tomorrow for another day on camp.
Hayley
Day One:
First and foremost it’s great to be back in camp and surrounded by the best female soccer players in the country!
It’s been a while since I was in such an environment but I’m excited at the opportunity and can’t wait to get onto the training paddock, but firstly there are a few administrative meetings to get through before we finally hit the paddock.
After what seems like eternity in meetings and drugs in sport lectures we finally get into the real business of why we are here. We start out with a solid warm-up with our new assistant coach, Spencer, and get a touch on the ball (which, I might add, are a little different to the ‘derbystar’ balls we use in the Westfield W-League).
We than head into 4v3 training. This is a tranistion type drill where there are 4 attackers v 3 defenders and on loss of possession it switches. It’s a high intenisty drill which certainly blows a few cobwebs out for us girls who have just come off a break at the end of the W-League season.
We coninue to do this for the entire session and its a solid strart to the camp.
Off to dinner after this and then bed to rest up for Friday, which will consist of a double field session, morning and afternoon. This will definitely test the old legs 🙂
Hayley
