A Manchester Mid Summers day !!

Lomas, Touraid Crew & Chester

Man Who ??

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Waking up to another typical Manchester summers day of sub zero temperatures & torrential down pours it was off back to the Wright Robinson Sports College to see how the Lomas were doing with their academics in the host kids classes.

All was well with the lads doing their best to get their heads around the subjects with a little help from their friends & really enjoying the experience. The coaches Pat, Panom & Ken were invited to go on a cross country run with one of the classes with Pat eventually coming in last ( I was acting as sweeper honest !!) completely drenched after a typical summer shower. Then it was off to the Manchester Town Hall to meet with the Lord Mayor and the other team captains, Andy Berry & his touraid members & ex Springbok & 1995 World Cup winner Chester Williams for a press conference & publicity photo shoot. Luckily Summer arrived, all 20 minutes of it during the photo session with brilliant sunshine before a downpour ended proceedings.

 Back at Wright Robinson the Lomas and their host kids were boarding buses to meet up with us at slightly more famous stadium than Karon Beach, Old Trafford the home of Manchester United round ball club. The Lomas loved the tour of such a famous and prestigious place but all said they would have preferred it if it was Twickenham !!

The lads have been finding it hard to come to terms with such wonderful UK weather and some of them the food although all the host families have been great and have tried to keep the boys well fed and occupied by taking them rugby training, sight seeing, crazy golf, etc in their spare time. The bonding between the host kids and the Lomas has been one of the high lights of the tour so far and a credit to Andy Berry & the Touraid concept. The whole community at write Robinson especially Sue, Sean & Scott of the PE department have been brilliant & even talked the senior members of the tour along with Touraids Andy Berry, Chester Williams & the Lord mayor of Manchester to partake in a Zumba Zumba aerobic dance fund raiser for touraid where we all made complete fools of ourselves and had a great time doing it. ( Bound to appear on Utube at some stage !!) After burning off all those calories it was straight down to China town for an all you can eat Chinese before heading home tired, wet, freezing but happy !!

Wednesday 22 June 2011

After a light breakfast of Bacon, Egg, Sausage & all the trimmings (well for me anyway) it was back to WR to meet up with the Lomas. Whilst they were doing their academics the coaches were invited to join various sports classes to view the different coaching techniques in operation. 

Andy Berry Touraid & Phil Clarke RFU

After 1st break the gauntlet was thrown down by the WR host lads to a dodge ball International against the Lomas. After a hard fought session the final game was won by WR lads to tie the match 2 games all just as the bell sounded. After lunch it was into the buses for the short drive down to Broughton Park RFC for the bit the boys had all been waiting for, some real on the ball coaching by the RFU’s Phil Clarke and his RFU coaching team. All the teams involved in the Touraid Rugby Festival tomorrow were there and the coaches mixed them all up into 4 different groups and sent them off to 4 different skill stations. To finish off there were games by the mixed groups & there was a lot of genuine talent on show with the South African team looking fast & agile & the Indian team also looking real contenders. The team from Trinidad and Tobago entertained everyone with their silky skills and the English teams including WR will be putting up a fight. The Lomas are looking in good shape and surprised RFU coaches with their tackling ability, ball handling skills and overall reading of the game. Lets hope they can make it through to one of the finals tomorrow but ultimately Rugby is the winner.

Tomorrows Lomas schedule is academics in the morning before the big showdown at the Manchester Touraid Rugby Festival at Eastlands Stadium in Manchester