It’s now 2.00pm so there’s still three hours to go until the team bus arrives and we start heading to the ground.
The flight over with Virgin went pretty quick…quicker for some than others though. Our new Football Coordinator Temeny Adrian is on her first interstate trip and somehow found herself up the front of the plane with an entire Premium Economy seating row to herself. Not sure how that happened, but eyebrows were raised. I’m pretty sure she is the same Temeny who books the flights and arranges the seating allocation…or maybe it was just a coincidence.
When we arrived we had a quick swim to freshen up after the flight and then had some physio with Steve Saunders before dinner.
We had an amazing spread put on for dinner and I had lasagna, beef stir fry with noodles, some chicken breast and steamed rice. A nice combination of carbs in there. For dessert I had a little pancake with some ice-cream and chocolate topping before heading in for a massage with some guy who was quite heavy handed. He really got stuck into my right hammy.
I have a room by myself which is nice and I watched a movie called ‘The Next Three Days’ with Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks. I really enjoyed it but I missed the last part. I had it on and it suddenly cut out. The cop was looking for a button from a jacket for evidence and then the screen went blank. I’m not sure what happened from there.
I love updating you all with the latest nicknames at the club and I’m pleased to announce that Shaun Atley is the latest player to have been rebranded.
Brady Rawlings has started calling him Humphrey as in the non-talking bear because he hardly talks. Asked how many words in total he’s actually spoken since coming to North Melbourne, Ats replied ‘probably about a hundred’.
I thought I had been targeted too when my Subway sandwich came to the club with ‘Fatboy’ written on it in thick black pen. Usually we just have our numbers on there but one of the boys changed my order form to ‘Fatboy’.
It isn’t always other players that hand out the nicknames, Cam Pedersen gave himself one the other week. We were in the spa at the club doing training recovery before a game and someone asked him what position he would be playing on the weekend. Cam said ‘probably CHOG as in centre half off ground’. When asked to explain himself, he reckons he said it because he is always named as an emergency and never makes it into the team. So now, we call him CHOG.
CHOG is also central to my next little story. This week, we all had to go to dinner with different members of our coterie group The Northerners. Ben Warren told CHOG to wear the club suit when in fact, it was a jeans and t-shirt affair. CHOG took it hook, line and sinker and rocked up fully decked out with a tie and everything. Last year Matthew Scott fell for the same prank…it never gets old.
Daniel Pratt has been up and about this week after getting one up on his housemate Ben Warren. During training, Pratty took a hanger on Milky’s back and has been talking it up ever since. He’s really been getting around with a spring in his step but Milky reckons it wasn’t that good. While Pratty reckons he ‘got right up there’, others claim he only got as high as Milky’s calf muscle. This is also backed up by the fact that Milky copped a knock in his calf and says he didn’t feel any other contact.
Ben Ross has also been jumping lately…onto bandwagons. A couple of years ago he got on Chelsea when it was at the top of the Premier League table, now he’s done the same with the Miami Heat because they’re in the NBA Playoffs. He’s gone out and bought a Lebron James jersey, Miami hat and even wears the wrist bands around his house. A minute doesn’t go by without him putting something on Twitter and he even tries to Tweet Lebron and Dwayne Wade directly. I wonder what the next team will be; the Queensland Firebirds netball team perhaps?
I’m on the Luke ‘Car Keys’ Delaney bandwagon. I reckon he will be a great addition to the team tonight and all the boys will be right behind him in his debut.
Wish us luck; with Browny back…we might need it!
