Jonny Davis, a middie for Team Scotland, will be blogging from Turku, Finland. Jonny will be detailing the daily ins and outs of what it’s like to play in the U19 World Games, but also share experiences from off the field. Below is the first installment of the U19 Scotland lacrosse blog.
Previous Blogs
Day 4: Game day. Early start to get in the right food before taping sticks, packing the white jerseys and heading down to the hotel foyer to meet for the walk over. Flag bearer Rory Halsey led us from the hotel to the changing rooms where the Germany Wales game was finishing up. After a team talk we stepped out to warm up, again with Rory leading us with the saltire. After a quick run through of drills it was time to sing the national anthem. All the effort spent on learning the national anthem was quickly wasted as the music played was at about half speed. Having named every single player and referee, we finally got down to the fun stuff.
The game started slow, the first quarter ending at 2-0. However by the half we had stretched the lead to 9-2, and by full time we had reached 16-4. Both Jimmy McBride and Kurtis 'Haystacks' Fotheringham managed to pull off hat tricks in their first international showings. Despite what seemed like a fairly cold co-existence in the hotel the past few days, both sides cheered up for a handshake at the end, exchanging Scotland wristbands for some tags of their own. Respect to the boys for coming in all the way from Korea with such a young team and few supporters, unlike the more local European teams.
Having warmed down some headed back to the hotel and Subway, a safer choice of food, while others stayed at the stands waiting for the England Iroquois. I got a Subway sorted then made it back for the second half, where the Iroquois were dominating despite some good play from the English.
We went for dinner then back to the stands for the US Australia game, arriving when the score was around 5-3, a very impressive scoreline for the Aussies. However the US slowly pulled away, and we decided instead to toss the ball in the main square. Some of the guys have been trying to get the ladies by rolling balls towards them from distance (American Pie?), but the cobbles usually make the ball end up in a road, and once the likes of Adam Sinclair get close the tactic fails anyways.
Tomorrow we see more walk throughs and more training, facing the Dutch on Sunday. Most of the boys are enjoying a subtitled showing of '300' on the hotel DVDs. Good job the Gerard Butler's Scottish.