Arrival

 

We have arrived, met our liaison officers, Masja, Masja, Alina, Janna (or something like this), and checked in at the hotel.

Kl. tidlig

@gardermoen

Karoline, Ă…sa, Gina
Rookies’ hat
Mats and the team
The coaches T & G

Meeting everyone at Gardermoen for an early start. Mats (M) is our manager for this trip, standing-in for K who couldn’t make it. Elain (E) will join us a bit later today.

Day 2 – Amsterdam

Second day in Amsterdam. The challenge of the day was to survive without a manager, as Kirsten had to travel back home earlier.

We had two pool games, against the dukkies (netherland’s development team) and a german team.

The first game was the closest of the weekend – it finished on a frustrating draw, with a last minute converted try against us. We had to win the second game with a margin higher than 10 points to qualify for the semi finals. We secured that rather quickly with 4 tries in the first half, thanks to a very strong game, maybe our best of the weekend.

Moving on to the semi got the coaches worried, as we were entering injury time. We down-prioritized the semi, a bit frustratingly, but all our objectives for the weekend had been met, and we needed to look at European championship.

Best player award went to Karin, for the energy she played with during the tournament. She started rugby with NTNUi, when I was coaching the team. She is the only player in the team this year who has been in the national team with me before. Great to see how far she has come!

Day 1 – Amsterdam

Game one, scrum against Belgium. (c) Kirsten Redmond KristiansenWe came to Amsterdam 7s to practice our game, get exposure to higher level, and get to know each others. Day 1 was perfect with 2 tough games (Belgium and Mo’s), which we lost, and one at our level, which we won. All the players got good playing time. Trude and I practiced our approach – coach 1 and coach A, each with a precise role to avoid stepping on each other’s feet during the day, and to maximize benefits of having two coaches.

On the evening, we had a classroom session with the team to reflect on two challenges we met during the day.

K, T and myself courageously went for an evening jog, to experience irl the flatness of the Netherland.

Here we go again – Amsterdam

Hair is a bit greyer, many new players, a few I know from over 6 years ago… Same mix of old and new with the staff, Kirsten managing again, Trude on my side coaching the players, and a new physio, Elain.

Ready for Amsterdam 7s, our first competition with the team this year.