Hello America,
It’s that time of year again. After most of us traveled all night long with no sleep we all made it into Dublin airport on Tuesday morning. There we met up with our tour guide George Hook from Irish Rugby Tours who directed us to our home for the next 10 days, Roganstown Country Club. Roganstown is a beautiful golf course hotel a few miles outside of Dublin and it did not dissapoint. After we got our roommates and ate some lunch it was time for our first training. Most of us were exhausted and had not slept for well over 24 hours, so of course our first training session would involve a lot of contact to wake us all up a bit. No time to rest when you have a game in 5 days. Knowing these Irish boys are going to give us all we can handle in the breakdown we spent most of the training session working on our body position in contact and rucking. The boys got after it and looked real sharp as seventy percent quickly turned into a hundred.
The only causality of the session was a little brother on brother lovin, when Zac and Jake Mizel collided during the warmup touch game. Little brother got the better of big brother this time, but after a few stitches over the eye Zac will be just fine.
Back to the hotel we grabbed a quick bite to eat and than moved into a team meeting where it was announced that Ryan Roundy, Seamus Kelly, and Nate Brakely would be our fearless leaders throughout the tour. A little bit of film and classroom work later it was (finally) time for bed.
Tuesday we grabbed an early breakfast and it was time to get right back on the pitch for some team defensive work. We spent most the time working on our defensive shape and line speed in different situations, making sure we are getting in position as quickly as possible and not giving the opposition any chance to catch us off guard.
After lunch we had another meeting to watch some film and than it was right back out on the field. While the weather in the morning session was you pretty typical wet cloudy Irish weather, the sun decided to surprise us all in the afternoon. We immediately split into units and worked on some of the fun stuff, attack. The forwards spent there day working on line outs, scrums, and whatever else they do when there not eating while the backs spent there time working on some passing skills, attacking moves, and just being awesome in general. Things started off a little slow as the guys were learning more about there new teammates, but looked real sharp towards the end.
Ice baths and showers later, it was back to the hotel before we got a chance to get out of the hotel for a little dinner and we ended up at the most American place in Dublin, Thurderbird cafe. The walls were littered with all sorts of Americana and the menu consisted of foods like burgers and chicken wings, a nice taste from home. Our bus driver gave us an impromptu tour on the way home however most of us were to tired to stay awake throughout the whole ride. Back to the hotel and right to bed to start off another day tomorrow.
Big thanks to Roganstown golf club, Irish Rugby Tours, and our tour sponsors Training Day. Also don’t forget to follow me on twitter @SaintItAintSo for some live tour updates.
Im Out,
Chris Saint
USA Rugby Blog 