Thursday 18th November 2010
Dear Diary
One of the best things about travelling as an All Black is that Pos (Errol Collins) sends the bulk of our luggage ahead of us the day before. So you load your bags on a truck and when you arrive in the new hotel you get your key from reception, walk into your hotel room and there they are sitting waiting for you. It's so cool.
I have been to Ireland once before. I got injured in the 2008 Scotland game, but we had already sent our bags over to Dublin on the truck the day before. So I literally had to fly over with the boys, walk into my room, get my bags and then go back to the airport to fly home to Christchurch. So it was nice to drive in here this time, to soak it up and enjoy it, see the golf course here at Castleknock and know I'm going to be able to get a hit on it.
We're staying at a beautiful country club hotel. It's got really nice facilities, a sauna, spa and swimming pool. As we arrived on a Sunday we were able to use all of it as part of our recovery and just chill out for an hour or two. Some of the boys were quite sore after the Scotland game.
Each Monday afternoon we have a recovery game of soccer and it's starting to get pretty serious now. We played on an astroturf ground surrounded by nets, so the ball was in play all the time. It was all on. I did hear a rumour that Braidy (Daniel Braid) was elbowing Brad (Thorn) in the nose - his already broken nose. So Braidy got flipped on his back and I understand there were no more elbows to the nose.
The weather held together through Tuesday's training. I know it sounds strange but it does play a part in being able to get through everything and plan well for the Irish game. We went through our back strikes and worked through quite a lot of defence. We also plugged the mistakes we made against Scotland to ensure they don't happen again. It was a good run out. As I'm the starting half back this week, it was great to have a run in that starting role and to go through everything so thoroughly.
We had dinner out as a squad, but as soon as we finished we all jumped in front of the big screen to watch the Munster game against Australia. The conditions were atrocious. The Munster team were pretty sharp. There were a few kiwi boys in the Munster team so we were cheering them on. It had nothing to do with the fact they were playing Aussie of course. The locals were wondering what was going on, listening to the All Blacks cheering for the Irish side. Obviously we were cheering for Sam (Tuitupou) and Dougie (Howlett).
Cheers,
Andy Ellis
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