Forgot to put this screenshot in the other day, showing the weather…

Doing a cross into 98.5 SonshineFM this morning @ 7:35, so of course, despite getting to sleep last night at midnight or later, I’m woken up by my brain at 5:30. Makes sense somewhere, I guess.

Day off for the boys today – no training or shootaround, so that’s a couple of hours extra I’ve got, which I can use to catchup on my blog, and compensate for our trip for Fish to meet the mayor or someone. Perth is a sister city to Taipei, so we’re being all fraternal, or something.

Talked to Fish – apparently he has to present him with a cap. Nobody appears to be too well briefed on this one. Guess I’ll do a story for the website this afternoon, which will be riveting.

Cross to Sonshine went well, Bear talked to Goss on Nova and that went well, Fish is talking to 6PR tonight. All good.

Another very strange moment this afternoon: Scott and I went to see the “Executive Director, International Affairs Commission, Taipei City Government” as cultural ambassadors for the Wildcats and the City of Perth.

Neither of us had the faintest idea what to expect – Jack and Andrew were supposed to be going, but Andrew was back in Perth because of a family medical emergency, and Jack was on a plane flying back, so Scott was drafted and I went to take photos.

It was all very pleasant – both he and Scott sat out the front of the room with a table between them with their nameplates on it, but he spoke excellent English after living in the US for years, and we spoke of how nice Perth was, how it had an enormous amount of beaches and golf courses, and how we had nothing to compare to their huge tower (Taipei 101).

He kept talking at me, and Scott looked over a fair bit, so I happily joined in, explaining how wonderful Perth was… (Really!!)

About 20 minutes of chat, then Fish grabbed the caps we’d brought to give them, he gave Fish a pen, and off we trundled. Diplomatic mission accomplished.

Certainly a new experience for me!

We played Japan and belted them. No surprises – they’ve played with just 8 blokes from the start, so they’re all playing around 30 minutes a night, every night. Killer.

I was just too tired to write much in the game, so I had to do it all when I got back here. It’s a cheat report – what do you say about a game where the better side goes ahead early and then continues to do so, and it’s the sixth game in seven days? Stats and coach comments, mostly…

Took a photo of some of the local support for the boys. I’ll do an article for the website next week – we’ve got match reports going up every day at the moment, so I might as well save it for next week, as I’ll do with the “Ambassador Fish” one.

The Darren Brooks show!

JB (Justin Brown) runs through him

Brad Robbins – pressure personified

I just liked it

Rogey hangin’ in there

Symmetry

You can tell how tired I am- the backgrounds show how off-level I was…

And, sure enough, on the walk back to the hotel, sort of talking to my mate from the Japanese team, Hasegawa, (my Japanese is … limited, fortunately his English is a lot better, but not very good at all, really), I got stopped by some girls who wanted their photo taken with me. I dunno if they thought someone has compressed Bear so that he still had the same mass but had somehow lost a foot or so, but I guess it kept them happy. The power of a uniform…

Didn’t finish until 1:30am, which was wonderful as I’d pretty much been working since Fish and I left for the city reception thing…

Website stories:
Cats v Japan

Radio stories:
Cats v Japan

Radios:
Mic – Sonshine 7:40
Tony – Nova 8:10
Scott – 6PR 19:20