Evening came and we were to have a Welcome Dinner with all the other teams. Most of us were getting excited for the buffet the resort was to put on. Once we arrived we were feeling somewhat under dressed shall we say.

 

With team Malaysia wearing stunning full length dresses, Barbados wearing red suits and Cook Islands with their traditional dresses and leis on their head. Let`s just say felt we were "traditional" as well with our good old polo shirts and shorts. :)

 

Before we were even seated, we were bombarded with many countries coming up to us and asking for photos.  We were seeing stars for a while after that. Everyone enjoyed the dinner and the variety of foods on offer. We all enjoyed meeting and mingling with the other countries.

 

Tuesday morning we were grateful not to have to do our pee samples for the first time of the tournament, meaning an extra ten minutes of our precious sleep. Especially for Ash because after all every minute is appreciated when you¡¦re rooming with a snorer (Shan).

 

We ate breakfast which was followed by a light training session at the resort. Once again, goalers missed out on all the fun games we played (including dodgeball where we were pegging tennis balls at each other and Sharni seemed to be prime  target even getting hit in the head¡Kgood work Sharnz! We got 10points off their score!) while they had to shoot. We are hoping this will pay off later on in the tournament!

 

The day went by and before we knew it, our first match against South Africa had finally arrived. We were all so excited to get out there and finally play what we have been waiting to do for the last 18 months of preparation. When we walked out onto the court, not only were our parents cheering, but we had St Josephs school right behind the bench screaming out our names and we were loving the "Happy Little Vegemite song" they learnt for us. After the warm up was completed we were called out onto the court to sing both National Anthems. When ours was playing, we heard a little echo from the bench realising that it was our little school who had learnt all the words and sung like it was their country.

 

Everyone got on and played really well. We were really happy with the result which was 73-22. We got to have parent time after the match where we could speak to our parents for 15minutes for most of us hadn¡¦t seen or spoken to them since they arrived. We arrived back to the villas for our lovely ice baths awaiting us.

 

We are looking forward to our next match against Samoa at where we can hopefully we can bring home our second win