Canterbury Magicians’ coach Stephen Cunis is on tour with the White Ferns in the UK and www.blackcaps.co.nz will have exclusive discussions with Cunis about the trials and tribulations the White Ferns and their support staff goes through during the next month on the road.
We arrived safely in England and things have started well in terms of hotels, catching up on sleep and getting our bearings.
In the build up to the first game the girls have been working hard at training (Jason Wheadon is running them hard) and we're all loving the summer weather...it's been 30 degrees for the time we've been here!
We were disappointed to play relatively averagely in the first game. The girls were rusty and pretty flat and it showed in the three disciplines.
We have now travelled to Southampton and had a good extended training to rectify some of the errors we made in the first game. The girls stepped up at training and a lot of positive improvement was evident so it is hoped that this is taken on to the field tomorrow and we play as well as we need to beat the English team.
In other news we watched the All Blacks win which was good. The English commentators were talking up Wales but as usual it was all talk. We were gutted to hear that the All Whites didn't get through...we found out half way through the first leg of our flights.
Obviously the English Football team were relatively disappointing to watch and it's been a slug fest in terms of the bagging the team is getting by the media and public... all the usual stuff about being paid too much, not caring and the like... it's pretty harsh at times but to be honest, quite humorous!
Anyway we must get back to preparing for our big day tomorrow. It is a televised game, which is fantastic for women’s cricket.
