Mavericks Michaella on U21 Tour
29th September 2008

by Michaella McFarlane

I was really excited when I found out that I had been picked to go on tour because, I had never been to Australia and knew it would be a fantastic experience. We departed on the 27 th of July at 12:00 and arrived in Canberra on Monday 28 th of July at 18:50. We stayed in Canberra until Monday the 4 th of August.

We stayed at the Australian Institute of Sport where there were many other athletes that also played sport at a high level. In the first couple of days we were all still jet lagged but had matches coming up so we had to get back into the netball mode quickly. Our first game that we played was against the Netball team at the AIS, and we played them twice. Then we had a game against the Australian National Squad, who we also played twice. Unfortunately we lost both games however we narrowed the gap each time we played, which meant we were gelling together as a team.

We arrived in Brisbane on the 4 th of August and stayed until the 11 th of August. We stayed in a Hotel called The Point Brisbane for the whole week and it was really nice. It was hot in Brisbane, which was a nice change from the cold weather in Canberra. In Brisbane we played the Australian U21 Netball Squad, the New Zealand U21 Netball Squad and an Australian Netball Team, and we played them all twice. On the day of our last netball game we played three matches in one day. It was really tough and everyone was feeling the strain by this point, but we stuck together as a team and pushed on. On our last day we had loads of fun because we went shopping and to the beach, which was a nice way to end tour.

We arrived back in London on Tuesday 12 th August, to meet our families and friends who we missed very much. I had a really exciting time on tour and I learnt so many new things about my game and about myself. I think that the team as a whole has improved massively and I hope next year at the world youth Champs we can come away with a gold medal.

Well done Michaella, keep up the good work!