Tuesday, 05 October 2010

Scotland 7s captain Scott Forrest writes his exclusive Commonwealth Games blog for scottishrugby.org where the captain talks about the team’s arrival and acclimatisation to Delhi, the opening ceremony and the next week’s worth of preparation before the two-day tournament begins.
When we arrived in Delhi we were a bit wary and unsure of what to expect because of all the coverage in the press but, after a long flight, we met the general team managers who took us around the village, the food hall (which is very impressive and has every type of food you could think of!) the gym and the training venue, before we finally got to our apartments which are great and very comfortable.
Normally when we go away to play in the IRB World Sevens Series we stay in a hotel, with two players per room, but the apartments sleep six and are next door to each other so we’re in and out of each others’ rooms all the time and spend more time together than usual which has been good.
India is a very different place to home as it has a very distinct culture. There are temples all over the place – in fact our apartment looks onto one. We get to see a bit of Delhi when we travel to and from training. All these little snippets allow you to pick up on the cultural differences, things you should and shouldn’t do and so on.

We had a game against India on Saturday. It was good for us to experience the midday temperature. Normally we wouldn’t have to put up with anything like that at home so our time here has also allowed us to alter small details around our training and playing. For instance, our water bottles are now stored in an ice container so we get a cold drink when water is brought on, we also have towels on ice to allow us to cool our core temperature when we get the chance and we’ve also got more towels around to dry the sweat off our hands. Little things like that might sound silly but they can all combine to make a big difference on match-day.
We’ve got to know a lot of the other Scottish athletes mostly through eating together in the food hall or recovering at the same time in the treatment room. The physio room is often where you really get to know other athletes and their sport and get encouraged to go and see them in action. Our physio times have so far coincided with the boxers who have a couple of fights coming up so we’re keen to go and watch them – as well as the wrestling and weightlifting. We’re hoping to book in and see as much as we can on our day off tomorrow (Wednesday).


On Monday we flew the flag with Team Scotland at the opening ceremony which was unbelievable. We thought we’d get a good reception but it was nothing was like we had expected. The crowd were incredible and there was so much going on as part of the ceremony. It was so colourful and there was just one thing after another. It was a bit of a blur. As we walked around there was lots noise and camera flashes so we just made sure we kept a look out for and waved at the odd the saltire in the crowd. There are not many completely round stadiums in the world so it’s pretty cool to look at. Its shape makes it look massive.
Because we have quite a lot of experience playing abroad, we’re used to this situation of having our week planned out in advance with training, recovery, downtime and allocated days-off all planned in advance and this week has been very similar, though obviously there’s a different element with the other sports around. Most if not all of our training is during the day which means that most of our evenings are free to see many of the other sports either in person or on TV. We’re really trying to take it all in – it’s been a great experience.
Now that we’re settled in and have established our team routine in what are now familiar settings we can begin to really focus on the match days. We trained yesterday (Tuesday) which was tough but everything is tough in this heat. We’ll do double rugby today with the afternoon session probably being the hardest of the week. We’ll then have a day off tomorrow (Wednesday), possibly another hit-out on Thursday (again similar to an IRB Sevens week), train Friday, day off Saturday, short captains run on Sunday for about 30-35 minutes of high intensity activity and then it’s match-day.
Thanks to everyone in Delhi and back home for the continued support.
 
Scott Forrest
Scotland 7s captain

This article was originally posted on 5-Oct-2010, 09:55 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 5-Oct-2010, 09:55.