Eagles Angels News

Women of Manly - Deanne Lees

17/2/2009

By Mary Finkelsen- Eagles Angels Manager

There’s a flurry of activity at the club at the moment and it’s all got to do with our boys packing their bags and getting organised for the UK to play against Leeds in the World Cup.  So I suddenly started thinking…..gosh all the planning that goes into organizing a family of three going overseas….imagine taking a family of 34!!  It must be a logistical nightmare!  476 pairs of undies, 952 pairs of socks, 102 pairs of jarmies, 17 tubes of toothpaste, 32 teddy bears, 12 hairdryers, 10 jars of large vegemite, 208 packets of Tim Tams……………So I decided to go speak with De Lees, the Operations Manager at Manly, and find out what goes into organizing such a major event.

Mary Finkelsen
Eagles Angels Manager

Did all the players have passports?
They did.  Although Matt’s (Orford) was expiring so we had to rush through a renewal for him.  I keep a record of all the passports and expire dates.

Who keeps their passports?
They keep them at home but when we travel they hand them in a week before and hand them in as a group at the airport.

So do you meet the players at the airport?
No we meet here at Narrabeen and then go all together by bus to the airport.  We do role call.

Who packs their bags for a trip like this?
Well they do it on their own but we give them a list of things to pack.  We give them a pretty comprehensive booklet as to what they should be packing.  Training clothes they will need, casual gear.  We are giving them a lot of cold weather gear like thermal, jackets and training gear.  Usually we get some frantic phone calls the day before double checking things.  We’ve even gone down the track on telling them what toiletries to take with them on the plane as things are so strict now.

A lot of them haven’t been overseas.  For some of the young ones this is a big trip.

What airline are they flying?
Etihad

How do you think they will cope with the jet lag?
Oh we’ve ticked all the boxes.  We’re not leaving any stone unturned.  At the moment we are giving them lots of Echinacea and vitamins to prevent colds etc.  Then we’ve ordered extra water on the plane as they are going to be tested on the plane for hydration levels.

Who tests them?
Donny does.

How does he do it?
Urine testing! 

What else are you doing?
We also give them details on when they should be sleeping – that they should stay awake for the first 5 hours – try to get their body clock in sync with the UK pretty quickly.  They should sleep at this certain time, what they should be eating.  We’ve actually requested certain meals on the plane.  They are flying Business Class which is another thing we’ve done.  Which sounds very extravagant but it’s a long flight.  We discussed this yesterday with the players and said that it wasn’t an end of season trip, that it’s a business trip.  They are all taking it very seriously.

Basically we’ve tried to mirror what we do here over there.  Which is a nightmare because of the time difference and trying to organise training venues and high performance units like we have here.  Finding suitable training venues in London has been really hard.  Leeds is easy because they are used to footballers.  Steve Giggs (Football Manager) has spent many hours late at night on the phone to people over there trying to organise things but hopefully pretty much what we do here, we will be doing over there.  There won’t be much difference from a training point of view.

It’s just like a normal away game for us in the sense that apart from water requirements and jet lag and food we are keeping our usual routine.

I suppose there will be strict guidelines with drinking on the plane?
Yes absolutely!  There will be moments here and there where they will have some free time.

So what meals have you requested?
Just higher carbohydrate meals.  They have a lot of curries and creamy high fat food – so we’ve just asked that on the menu there be a couple of pasta dishes and something simple that the boys can snack on like a burger.

How have the airline responded?
They’ve been fine.  I don’t think they’ve ever had a football team travel with them.  I had to speak with them and request that each player needed to be allocated 5 litres of water each.  They said they didn’t normally carry that much water on the plane!

At least that makes the urine testing easy!  So I guess they are going to do it?
Yes!  They’ve been really good…..very flexible.

Hopefully they haven’t sacrificed fuel to accommodate the extra water!

Wow!  5 litres per player – that’s how much you hope for the boys to drink in the 24 hours or so?    Do they go to the toilet a lot or is their body used to it?
Oh they are always going to the toilet.  Bus trips are terrible with the boys – we always need to stop 5 or so times!  Their first leg is 15 hours to Abu Dhabi

So it’s a long time for these boys to be sitting still doing nothing.

So what are the boys taking with them to amuse themselves?
Cards…that’s all they do.  We're taking over the whole of business class so no doubt they will turn it into a little fun gambling den!

Cards and I guess the usual iPods and stuff like that?
Yes.

Organising rooms and accommodation – how do you organise that?
Well we are guided by the UK Rugby League as they organise everything in London so we are trying to communicate with them.  They’ve booked a hotel for us at Twickenham.  It’s brand new so we are the guinea pigs! Well in fact the new hotel fell through so there was frantic few days trying to find another..!!

How do you work out who shares with who?
The players choose who they want to share with.  The newies we’ve had to fiddle around with as we don’t really know.  Also Matt Orford has a really strict regime when he goes away and he always shared with Steve Bell.  So we don’t know who we are going to pair up with Matty this year.  Matt has a very definite way of preparing for each game.

Have you got any ideas this year?  Whatever you don’t put him with Dave Williams!
He’d be fun but not a good pairing!  No – we’re not sure yet.

Des….does he share with anyone?
No.  It’s always been that way.  Des is the only one that’s on his own and Andre as he has to treat players.

With the odd numbers we have it may end up that Matt gets his own room and being captain he deserves it.  But then he may not want to be on his own.  I’m not sure.  I know when Beaver was captain he didn’t want to be on his own He hated being on his own.

I prefer to be on my own but I think that’s a girl thing…own bathroom and all!

So how long are you there for?
One week and then one week in Leeds.

What’s the place like in Leeds?
Oh that’s fine.  They are used to footballers coming all the time.  We are staying at an established hotel which has got all the facilities.

So what are they doing in the first week in London?
They are playing the Harlequins.  That’s Luke (Williamson) and Chad’s (Randall) team.  So we arrive there Monday and then we play the Harlequins on the Sunday.  So we have pretty much a full week to prepare.

So then you go to Leeds?  So food requirements…again lots of water, lots of carbs?
Our dieticians put together a menu for each day and give it to the hotels as a guideline.  They sent us sample menus which were fantastic – I loved the food!  But they wouldn’t be able to stomach the food as it was a bit extravagant, very creamy.  So we’ve had to change all of that.  So we’ve told them exactly what we’ve wanted.

So then they go to Leeds…oh do they have any time off?
One day they have to go around London and do whatever they want.  They have to be back at the hotel by a certain time.  We’ll do the same thing in Leeds.

So other than that….not much else happens….just training….?
Also a lot of media commitments.  Not so much in London but in Leeds they are more interested so we have school clinics, shopping centre appearances.  They are doing a dinner for Beaver at his home club so a few of the players are going there and spend some time with him.  They are doing a civic reception in Leeds.  Peter Peters organizes that ahead of time.

So how many players are going?
23   Players.  11 staff.

How does a team prepare to play in extreme conditions such as this?  Did Des have a snow machine bought in!!
No…but it probably crossed his mind.  I guess the answer is that you can’t really prepare for the conditions…they just have to play their best.

(Since speaking with De I asked Manly guru Noel Clea,l who has played in conditions like this, the same question.  His response was ‘don’t look up and don’t look down, just run and concentrate on what’s ahead!’)

What are you doing with the players that are left behind?
They have their own training programme and Clayton Kearney is staying behind as well.  He is overseeing all the training sessions for these boys and they are going to fly up each Thursday to the Sunshine Coast and play up there each weekend while the boys are away.  So they’ll be training pretty hard.

Are they allowed to stop and buy some duty free??
Oh yeah!  (Boys if you are reading this….Shalimar please!!)

So the games March 1 and they fly back pretty much straight away? 
We play on the Sunday at 6pm and afterwards…..Celebrate victory!.....

Yes and stay overnight and fly from Leeds to London the next day and then we are back on the 4th.  In the morning .

Oh just in time for our Warringah Mall Eagles Angels launch at the Mall that day.  Tell the boys to come straight to the Mall and be there around 11am….as an incentive tell them Sarah (Murdoch) will be there and get them to bring the trophy!
Then that Friday (6th) we have our season launch and then we are pretty much into it!
Yeah , a pity our first game isn’t at Brookie.  That would have been nice.

Yeah true.

Well wish all the boys a safe and victorious trip from me and the Angels.

Mary Finkelsen
Eagles Angels Manager

 

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