Perth Trip Day Three

Perth Trip Day Three

Morning Training

To start the day of netball matches, Mr. Njoo brought us out to the park near our hotel for an early morning jog. We walked past many brick houses. They were gigantic compared to the shoebox we lived in Singapore. Upon reaching the park, I stared at the wide green field around us. “Wow!” was all I could say. The view was fantastic! We are going to jog along the Swan River which overlooked the CBD in Perth City. We placed our tumblers at a bench and the netballers set off leaving me behind to look after their tumblers and towels. After a few minutes, they were out of my sight. They were supposed to jog for 15 minutes from where we were, do some core muscle exercises and then jog back. My job was to stay at the bench and ‘guard’ our stuff. I waited for 30 plus minutes before the netballers started appearing on the tracks again. Their cheeks were flushed and you could hear them panting from afar. I was so glad I did not take part in the exercise even though Mr Njoo invited me to.

Coaching clinic and Matchplay @ Joondalup Arena

Next, we were off to Joondalup for our first netball match of this trip. The netballers looked focused and were not as chatty as before. They wanted to start off with a victory and like what Mr Njoo has mentioned to them the night before at the debrief. We were not just playing for the school but for the reputation of our country! We had 14 players so Mr Njoo split us into Team A and Team B.

Team A (Green) (basically the team that played in the victorious National Final)

GK - Jeraldine Lee, GD - Jamie Wong, WD - Fatin, C - Rukmini, WA - Xing Hui, GA - Seak Im and GS - Corrine Kwek

Team B (Red)

GK - Anna Marie, GD - Josephine Yeh, WD - Chalisa, C - Pepe, WA - Vanessa, GA - Isabel and GS - Syazana

After a short coaching clinic focusing on agility and more core muscles training by coach Carrie, the matchplay began. TKP A vs Saints and TKP B vs Balmoral. TKP A started the match badly. As usual, they failed to score in their first centre pass. I could see the disgust on Mr Njoo's face when Seak Im threw the stray pass. Jeraldine was at the top of her game and gamely intercepted the Saints attack. Soon, TKP A began to rain attack after attack on Saints. Their tactics of defending very tightly at the opponent's goal paid off. TKP A began to lead by 9 goals after the game. TKP B played gallantly against the stronger Balmoral team (Yellow jersey). Though they gave their best, they were not able to defeat the more superior and faster Balmoral team and lost the match.

For the second game, Team A was going to play the tougher team, Balmoral. Again, they had a rocky start, due to losing the centre pass again. This time, it was not as easy to get back as Balmoral were just as good as them. It was like playing against St. Margaret’s. The GA (a malaysian) was very swift and accurate often giving Jamie a torrid time trying to guard her and the GS was very accurate. But their defense was not as good as their attack and it was easy for Seak Im and Corrins to take advantage of that having played together for quite some time now. Their understanding was somehow telepathic, each of them knew where the other would be and it was easy for the midfielders to find them in the 'D'. TKP A won the match but the difference was only about 5 goals. Team B got to play with the easier team, Saints. They started quite well, managing to get their centre pass all the way to the shooting ‘D’, but our inexperienced GS missed. For the first quarter of the match, Team B didn’t catch their rhythm so Balmoral overtook them by leaps and bounds. But after Pepe, the captain for Team B, pointed out their mistakes, they improved a lot in the end, only losing by a few points.
So, final review. Team A did their thing and won all two games while Team B lost all two games but tried their best.

Immersion Activity - Hillary Beach

‘Everyone change into your wet clothes because we are going to the Beach!’ that was what everyone was thinking as we arrived at the beach. That was what kept us going for the whole day. Unfortunately, it was drizzling so I held a sandcastle competition under the tent. The winner would get an ice cream for free! After hearing that, everyone immediately got to work. Unfortunately, they were distracted by two trays of fries bought by Mr Njoo. Only Xing Hui and Josephine didn’t stop building so I crowned them the winner. Then suddenly I was carried to the water and they threw me into it! I felt like I was turning to ice! The water was freezing cold. To make matters worse the wind was so chilly. I had to stay in the water to stay warm. I threw sand balls to those who threw me into the water. I finally got my revenge. Tee Hee! Once the hot sun came out, all of us emerged from the water and played Frisbee. My team kept losing because the wind was blowing the opposite direction . Grrr… Still, it was just a game. When we almost had to go, we had a big sand war to end the day off.