Hello all,
Well my team didn't have a game this weekend so todays blog, being my first blog i will catch you up on what has happened since i got here.
I arrived in La Crau at the end of July and things started quickly. For my first two weeks here nobody touched a handball. We had practice 4 days a week but the practices were just testing. We spent the first hr of training outside on the track, doing mostly speed and endurance testing, including the beep teas (in 35 degree heat). The second half of practice was focused on core body training, sit ups, push ups, wall squats as well as medicine ball exercises.
After the two weeks of "hell" all the girls were looking forward to finally doing some handball drills. Our first game was for the France Cup on sept. 11th so we had a little over a month before our first real game. This time was spent learning a 3-2-1 defence (as the team usually played 6-0), offensive plays as well as playing at least one exhibition match per week against various clubs.
The first exhibition game was against a D2 club called La Motte-Servolex, with my club being in N2 we has our work cut out for us. And it showed with the final result of the game being 39-19 for La Motte. After the game everybody was really down on themselves but then we were reminded that this team trains 2 times a day as well as they are 2 levels above us in league.
The rest of our pre-season games went well playing clubs in N1, N2 and N3 and winning all of them, we started to play as a team and it was showing in the results. Unfortunately in playing these games we ended up with some injuries on the team, 5 to be exact. And when the time came for our first game we played away vs Bouc-Bel-Air with only 2 girls on the bench, one goalie and one out player. We fought throughout the whole match and won the game 26-23. Our next France Cup game will be played in the following weeks at home against a D2 team so it will be a difficult game to win but we will see what happends.
As for league games we have had 2, our first game was near Paris in a place called Saint Germain Blavozy and we lost 22-30. After getting off a 6.5 hr bus ride and only having an hr till game time the girls found it very difficult to get focused and never seemed to get fully into the game (including myself). My team received 8 two minutes as well as 2 red cards during the game and we also had many turnovers with a result of 13 fast break goals by the other team. So needless to say the 6.5 hr bus ride home was very quite.
Our second game (first home game) went alot smoother. Then mens team played before us and won so there was some pressure on the girls to do the same. Even with 2 girls still unable to play due to injury we finally started playing as a team and won the game 29-22 against a team call Val De Leysse in front of about 500 fans, very cool.
Even though we didn't have a game this past weekend, during the week i was very busy. There is a D1 team about 15 min away that has goalie training 2 times a week with a goalie coach who happeneds to be the first goalie for Tord's team. So twice a week i go into Toulon and train with their goalies for 45 min then with the team for 45 min. This past week one of the goalies for Toulon broke her nose (in 3 different places) playing soccer, so the coach of Toulon asked me to come train with them 5 times last week (in addition to my 4 trainings with my) so i did. It was a very long week and my body needed the weekend off but i really enjoy practicing with the Toulon girls and hope to keep improving so i may have the possibility to play at a higher level in the future.
This weekend we will play at home against CCS Handball Port De Bouc, they have also won one game and lost one game so it should be interesting.
I hope to get some pictures and video from the home games up soon for you guys to check out.
Thats about on my end of things.
Bisous :)
Kimberley
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