So apparently a player was left behind on purpose to teach them a lesson about responsibility. Who was it? By the way, I chuckled a little upon learning that we've brought along a journo embedded with us. We sure love media attention.
ONE Parramatta player has been left behind in Sydney.
Every minibar in the player’s hotel rooms have been locked and without access to the key.
Chris Sandow made certain his skin folds were less than what he recorded following his final match last season, while hulking forward Pauli Pauli made it on the plane by 1kg.
Parramatta began training for their pre-season camp on America’s west coast long before they boarded a long-haul flight last Monday.
If the Eels playing group thought they were heading off on vacation, here in Seattle, coach Brad Arthur made sure they were sorely mistaken more than a month ago.
“This is no junket,” Arthur told his players.
“If you don’t meet your targets, you’re not coming to Seattle.”
After the Eels limp-finish to the 2014 season, failing to progress to the finals after losses to lowly-ranked Newcastle and Canberra, every player was handed a booklet to analyse during their post-season break. The booklet contained a review of their season statistics compared with the best players in their position, in the game.
“And a dozen of them were given skin folds and weight targets and if they didn't reach it, don’t expect to come to Seattle, they were told,’’ Arthur said.
“There was one that I had to leave behind. We’ve come here to train and use it as a learning experience.’’
The Parramatta coaching staff are also treating the eight-day camp with as regimented approach as they would take back at the office in western Sydney, poring through video in their hotel rooms of last year’s Auckland Nines in preparation for next year’s tournament.
On Wednesday the Eels shook off any residual jet-lag with a weights session inside the five-star gymnasium at the Washington Athletic Club.
On Thursday, they will hold their first on-field training session inside Husky Stadium, which is home to college football team the Washington Huskies. The stadium seats 60,000 people and is bigger than the NRL’s Allianz Stadium.
With a host of new signings including Anthony Watmough, Beau Champion, Reece Robinson and Richie Fa’aoso, what Arthur is also enthusiastic about is the opportunity that comes with any footy trip away from home, uniting as a group and learning more about each other.
“Because they have to live with each other 24/7 when they are away together, I don’t think there’s any better way to start a pre-season,’’ Arthur said.
“To get them to know each other, they’re almost forced into spending time with each other. It’s also a great chance for the coaching staff to learn more about the players.
“We’ve got a new head of physical performance in Devs (Paul Devlin) and he can get a feel for their habits, their diet and their preparation.
“Because they’re (players) relatively young, they still need to be educated on what to eat, when to eat it, how to stay on top of their calorie intake.
“It’s easy to say, ‘you’ve got to stay on top of your weight’, but it’s also educating them and we’ll be able to do that while we’re here.’’
David Riccio travelled to Seattle as a guest of the Parramatta Eels.
Replies
So, can you name and shame?
Hoppa made a instagram reply to Peats about respect
http://instagram.com/p/vAS-uDJ0hF/?modal=true
Allgood
Semi
McPherson
Crooks
Robinson
All not there
John Folau has a picture on his instagram saying dinner with the boys #fatclub allgood is in the pic along with Crooks. So it could be Folau (is he now a top squad member? Or even allgood
lol.
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