The Mo Hunt Column: Touch down in New Zealand!
In the first instalment of her WXV column, Natasha 'Mo' Hunt takes us behind the scenes in Red Roses camp.
Hello Red Roses fans, or those looking for more semi-final updates and have accidently stumbled upon this. How amazing the boys are the only unbeaten team left in the World Cup by the way!
Whilst the World Cup comes to its close, we are just beginning our journey in this brand-new tournament called WXV. It’s an incredible idea of how you merge the global calendar and definitely something the women’s game is doing right at the moment. For those that have no idea what I’m talking about (much like my mum), I’ll give you a bit of background: WXV is split into three tiers, played in three different locations, and each tier consists of six teams and is made up of two pools. We then just battle it out for a shiny trophy. The only questionable thing about the tournament so far is the fact the captains' shoot consisted of the six captains photographed by the trophy piggybacking each other, but that’s for another time! So please enjoy a bit of behind-the-scenes action in my humble opinion as I bring you this little blog every week.
We’ve been over in New Zealand just over a week now and have well and truly settled in, after our very long flight. The lack of sleep was soon perked up by a lovely coffee shop the other side of Wellington customs and some good vibes sat on the floor of the car park, waiting for the girls at the back of the queue. There’s a story of a new nickname for Connie here but she’d kill me if I told you! We had a great bus driver on the way in from the airport who told us all about the culture of New Zealand and how to introduce yourself. Luckily for me, my bus buddy is our resident Kiwi Amy Cokayne who used to live here so any additional information we needed was flowing.
Our first hotel was the centre of Wellington, which was a godsend when we had to stay awake until a reasonable hour to try and stick to our jet lag protocols. Most of us went on a little stroll of Wellington harbour after dinner which was just lovely; we think we saw the staff out for a pint but who can blame them when the setting was so beautiful! Day two and three in Wellington consisted of very little training as we were getting acclimatised and a lot of shopping. Lululemon have taken more in those two days than they’ve taken for the last quarter and I’m pretty sure every shade of the ‘I love Ugly’ hoody now exists in our team room; fair play to the girls for co-ordinating! They did their fashion shows of what they’d purchased in the day when they got back.
There was a bit of gym, skills, coffees and cultural bits in there too (it wasn’t all just shopping). A few of us got out to go to the museum which was meant to be super impressive. The only issue was that there are two museums in Wellington, one extremely impressive, and the other one that Zoe, Meg, Tat and I ended up in… We didn’t even realise until the girls were showing their pictures at dinner of how lifelike the models were!
On Friday, we transferred from our shopping, coffee excursion up the road to the New Zealand Campus for Innovation and Sport. This is where the real graft started and what a place to do it in! It is the best facility I’ve ever trained in and having first been capped 12 years ago, there’s been a few! We have our own little apartments and a really cool team room eating space. The gym, pitches and indoor facility is something else and our little private area even has its own basketball court, which would be the best thing ever, if the physios let us play! It’s been a really good move for us, given us that switch into match week but as ever the opportunity to switch off in between sessions which is so important.
We’ve also had an addition to our staff in our new nutritionist Aimee who arrived whilst we were already in New Zealand. We’re not sure if the food options are amazing because of her or its completely coincidental but either way she can claim it! She came to us after completing four marathons in four days and breaking three world records in the process; pretty impressive stats and no wonder she’s fitted in so well. Other than the food, brilliant facilities and great space, the best part of this trip so far had to be the police dog handling place. I’m sure if you follow any of us on social media you saw the pure elation when we got to meet eight German Sheppard puppies and one blonde lab. When you’ve been in camp for so long it was the lift everyone needed after the tough attack session in the sunshine.
We’re all so excited to play on Friday and get our tournament underway. First up is Australia and although this blog has focused on everything but the rugby, hopefully you will all be able to see how hard we’ve been working in the meantime. The next time I update you all we will be one game down and have everyone together as we eagerly await the arrival of our head coach John Mitchell . More on the impact he has next week!
Have a great week everyone and remember set those alarms for 7am! As ever, your support means the world.
