Follow Swallow: Day one
Keep up to date with all the movements of North Melbourne Syd Barker Medal winner Andrew Swallow in his new blog: Follow Swallow.
This week Andrew's on the Gold Coast for the Kangaroos pre-season training camp.
Sleep was really good last night until someone turned the air conditioning off. I suspect it was Warren Benjamin. He was also snoring again. The big Maj (Majak Daw) was in bed early - he goes to bed at about 9.00pm but we disrupt him for about an hour and a half. The Big Smack (Hamish McIntosh) was up early, I don’t know what he was doing but he was just up and gone.
I usually take time to get up. I just lie in bed and think about life, particularly Wazza’s snoring. I eventually got up and went for a shower in the girls toilets because we don’t have any girls in our dorm, so it’s safe. I couldn’t get the showers working because you have to press a button and it wouldn’t go on. I kept trying until Ben Ross told me I had to wait two minutes and then press some button to get it going - that worked. Apparently you can only have four minutes in there because they’re (Queensland) on stage six water restrictions. No one goes by that in Melbourne.
We had breakfast and I had my porridge with three little things of honey and then I had some fruit salad and yoghurt just to top it off. I got carried away yesterday with my diet, so I thought today I’d go back to the stock standard.
I then went and got ready for a swim. I was fatigued from a big session yesterday and my neck and shoulders were quite sore from the bike - not as sore as Ben Speight who still has face imprinted on that pole. I applied some sunscreen on shoulders because they were burnt and I wanted to make sure I evened the tan up. We jumped in the 50 metre pool which was unusual for us because we are usually in a 25 metre one. It’s more challenging because you don’t get to push off as often and have to swim for longer periods obviously. I really didn’t enjoy the swim - I’m an alright swimmer but I blew up. I was leading a couple of laps but then died and even had to let Lachie Hansen pass me at one stage. I don’t mind swimming, but I struggled today.
Lindsay Thomas is no good in the pool. He hasn’t got any better over the years. Ben Speight couldn’t swim before he got here but he’s getting better now. Todd Goldstein is not a bad swimmer but he’s got one big flipper - one of his feet just bangs down and makes a huge splash every stroke. Brady Rawlings swims without goggles which is strange - I don’t know what his theory is there.
After the swim I went to some short meetings and then caught up with Leigh Harding, Liam Anthony, Ed Lower, Jack Ziebell, Daniel Wells with Brad Scott and Darren Crocker. We spoke about stoppages for this year and later on in the camp we’ll give a presentation to the rest of the group with our plan.
I then had lunch which was fried rice and curry. It sounds like a strange combination but it was good. I went back for some other pasta salad, because I’m on a ‘get large’ program.
After lunch we got ready for weights and core session. We were out on the synthetic turf and pretty much threw medicine balls around with our tops off. The boys were pretty excited about getting their tops off because other teams always have their tops off in the paper, but we’re never allowed to because we want to make sure we give the sponsors heaps of exposure, especially Mazda.
Then it was back inside for weights. Sam Wright was struggling with the elastic bands we attach to the bench press bar. Brayden ‘Chuck’ Norris struggled particularly and goes extremely red in the face because he doesn’t breathe when he lifts weights and at one stage, he looked like he was going to pop his shoulder out. He’s trying to assure me that he’s he filling out nicely though. Ayden Kennedy can’t keep his eyes off the mirrors. I was pretty good at the old dips and I had exceptional form. Sam Wright was again poor at these - one shoulder was higher than the other and he was acting like he’d had a reconstruction. Even Robbie Tarrant doesn’t do them like that, and he’s had four.
Nathan Grima, Robbie Tarrant, Luke Delaney and David Hale were doing about 200kg on the shoulder shrugs which was pretty impressive. The girl that was working in the gym was sitting two metres away from them and that may have had something to do with it. Doctor Con (Mitropoulos) was walking around and he looks like he’s on the ‘get large’ program as well. I think he spends too much time in Greece working on his tan, rather than being a doctor.
After a solid session I jumped in the ice baths. Today I shared one with Brady and Todd Goldstein. The Goldman needs to seriously think about getting his chest waxed. Marcus White tried to squeeze in again but we didn’t have any room.
I went back to the room, had a shower, got changed and went into a meeting run by James Brayshaw.
We were supposed to be at a barbecue with the Queensland Supporters Group by 5.30pm but the bus forgot to come and pick up my group. While we waited I bowled one of the greatest spells in backyard cricket of all time, unchanged. I took the wickets of Brayden, Wright, Leigh ‘Patch’ Adams, Ryan Bastinac, Alan Obst and Levi Greenwood - it was an inspired spell and I got each of them out about six times. Their batting was woeful and if Doctor Con was a better fielder I would have taken a few more. He dropped about ten catches.
When we eventually got to the barbecue we had a great time. There was a great turnout, good food, good people. We really appreciated the support from the Queensland locals and the way they looked after us. At the end the raffle was drawn, Ben Speight had his name pulled out, it should have been a redraw but he literally took home the chocolates. It was rigged - I felt like I should have won but I didn’t buy any raffle tickets.
I then came back to the Super Sports Centre and got some physio from Konrad (Slavinskis) the Russian. It was excruciatingly painful.
