David Pocock's UK Tour Diary
with Emirates Western Force UK Tour Captain David Pocock
Edition 7 - Monday 1 September
Well, that’s it. The tour has come to end.
Unfortunately it didn’t end the way we would have liked and it was a pretty disappointing last game against Leicester. The Tigers dominated for long periods of the game and out-muscled us around the field to score an easy win in front of the biggest crowd we’d experienced on the tour.
While it was a very disappointing result, I believe we all learned a lot from the defeat and the group will benefit from the experience of the whole tour moving forward.
Despite the negative scoreline, the last week of the tour provided one of the major highlights off the field.
Edition 6 - Friday 29 August
With the tour drawing to a close I thought it might be best to share with a few of the new nicknames and allegiances that have been formed over the past few weeks in England.
The flouro crew – You’ve heard about these guys – Dane H-P, Justin Turner (now simply known as Greg after Mr Greg Greggson off the ABC's Summer Heights High), Tommy Murday (known as Bones due to his lankiness) and Jimmy O'Connor (rabbit) are still walking around in their short shorts (or skinny jeans when its cold) and lairy t-shirts thinking they own the place.
Lenny Tia Tia, Dion Berryman and Kieran (known by most as K-Bomb - possibly for his explosive moves on the dance floor) and Filipe Manu (Flipper) have formed a little movie club, spending almost all of their days on the pillow with the in-house movies on.
Edition 5 - Tuesday 26 August
It was a big week of preparation in Northampton, with not too much happening outside of training time.
I thought we had prepared well for the game and it was very disappointing to go out and perform the way we did. For a smallish ground, Franklins Gardens was one of the best venues I’ve played in.
The Northampton side was the strongest we’ve faced on tour and unfortunately for us we didn’t come up with a good enough performance on the day.
Having said that we had plenty of the running early in the game and at 10-3 down with about 15 minutes to go, it was anyone’s game. Two quick tries to the Saints put paid to that and ended the game with a blowout score of 22-3.
Our defensive effort was great. We scrambled quite well and held them out for long periods of time but our set piece and ball security at the breakdown were very poor, which is where the game was lost.
Edition 4 - Tuesday 19 August
Unbelievable!! That’s the only way to describe the Emirates Stadium experience.
It started with a tour of the venue which was shared by the whole squad last Wednesday, then to cap it off yours truly was invited to watch Arsenal’s opening Premier League match on Saturday from the comforts of the president’s lounge.
The Stadium tour was a great experience, made even better by our tour guide who was an absolute Arsenal tragic and knew everything about the team and players. He told us he’d been to every Arsenal home game since 1963 and even dressed up as the team’s mascot on game days!
What stood out about the Stadium was that everything was in absolutely pristine condition. The changerooms, the field and the recovery facilities looked like they’d never been used.
We got the full tour of the change room and the facilities but no one was allowed to walk on to the pitch, which looked so perfect it was like a carpet.
Edition 3 - Wednesday 13 August
The grind of a long tour has begun but the team is off to a good start after wins against Newcastle and the Saracens Academy.
After the 10-point win over the Falcons we turned our attention to Saracens and departed Newcastle on a 6 hour bus ride down to Hatfield.
Long bus trips aren’t my fortay I must admit, but the highlight of the trip was a pit stop in Charlton where we had one of the best feeds on tour so far.
Now that we’re in a new town, everyone has been allocated new roommates to freshen things up.
This time I’m paired up with our young fullback Dion Berryman, although I can’t tell you much about him yet as he spends most of his time out of the room hanging with the young blokes.
Edition 2 - Friday 8 August
All is ready for our opening match of the tour, against the Newcastle Falcons on Friday night.
Today we wrapped up our preparations for the tour opener with a captain’s run session at Kingston Park, where we play the first of six tour matches tomorrow night.
Reports from the Falcons camp suggests they’ll play a pretty young team, with a few new faces and some experienced players like legendary All Blacks prop Carl Hayman.
We’re just looking forward to running out and getting some much-needed rugby under our belts.
With a day off on Wednesday most of the squad used the opportunity to head up to Edinburgh to do some sight-seeing.
Edition 1 - Wednesday 6 August
It’s lucky we’re not on a cricket tour.
That’s about all I can say after our boys copped a hiding at the hands of Friday night’s opponents, the Newcastle Falcons, in a special Twenty20 cricket match to celebrate Matt Burke’s testimonial last night.
‘Burkey’, as well as being one of the greatest Wallabies and a former Falcon, showed he has plenty of tricks on the cricket pitch as well, bowling the hapless AJ Whalley with a rank full toss.
It was a fun and relaxing afternoon which gave the boys the chance to get the blood flowing after a long travel day, but we weren’t expecting it to be such a big deal!
As we drove into the ground on the bus we soon realised we were playing in a proper stadium, not just a park down the road, so you can imagine our surprise when an ITV television camera filmed us walking in to meet a crowd of over 200 people!
