Thursday, October 4, 2007

Good to be Home

You always need a little luck to go your way in this profession. Right now we (the Crocs) are playing great for the first 24 minutes, then we leave our game in the change room at half time. You need luck, but you create your own.

We are not creating that for ourselves in the second half and it is amazing how it seems to effect everything else that goes on. Over the five days we spent going to and from Singapore there are many examples how this presents itself.

First we arrive in Singapore a little over an hour later than what was first expected. Our travel time over there ended up being approx 16 hours. If your winning this does not bother you, but when you lose, you seem to become very tired and testy.

We go to shoot around the day of the game and are expecting a 10 minute bus ride. All players board the bus with only their shoes but for some reason the bus driver thinks we are going to the airport. 45 minutes later we arrive for practice. Just another thing that does not go your way. Maybe the driver could see into the future and was trying to give us a message about the result of the game.

During the game Mick Cedar receives a nasty cut on his cheek from his own teammate. I'm pretty sure NBL rules say you need a doctor in the house, none were present. Instead Cedar sucks it up and plays with strapping tape used as a band aid because somehow our first aid kit ended up in London. After the game Cedar seeks medical attention and is now the proud owner of 15 stitches. This is called bad luck.

We get back to Sydney (early evening) where we have to spend the night because there are no more connecting flights to Townsville the rest of the day. The hotel has lost our dinner order so there is no food prepared for 13 starving mouths upon arrival. We finally get fed and are in bed before midnight.

A rather unadventurous but successful Thursday. Maybe it is time our luck starts to change. I sure hope so.

Why did I write about this. I remember having a conversation with Leroy Loggins back in '93. I was home for a few months from the States and playing CBA with Toowoomba. I was about to embark on a three game road trip in a 60 hour span. Leroy wished me luck and I said, "you don't need luck!"

How wrong I was, but what a great lesson I learnt. Luck is a great friend to have. I hope we find each other before Saturday.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You failed to mention the moths.

Anonymous said...

Could it be that your calves were way too loose before the game?

MAGIC MAN said...

go back to oz hoops with the rest of the 10 year olds.

John Rillie said...

Magic Man:

Anonymous has some very good inside mail. The hotel we stayed in at Sydney had a moth problem. A few of the rooms had many moths. The hotel even sent up the doorman to catch them in the dark. I guess on of our assistant coaches got a hell of a surprise to find a man hiding in the dark trying to catch moths!

As for the calves, there was a great foot massage machine Anthony Stewart and myself stumbled upon. For both of us seasoned veterans, our calves have not felt that good in ages.