Here we go again...

There are 61 days to go until the NSW Swifts kick off our 2012 ANZ Championship campaign... Not that I’m counting!

I had a lovely break(in between the home training sessions). I managed to get back home (to Bega) and enjoy some family time. It was great to have Christmas at the beach surrounded by the entire family- but gee it was exhausting! By the time I caught up with all the family and friends from home and finally got back to Sydney, I think I needed another few days to recover! All my nieces and nephews are so entertaining and fun to play with, but if I only had the energy of a 10 year-old child!! They just go, go, go!! =)

Pre-season is always the toughest time of the year in my opinion. It’s when the hard, long hours are spent in the gym, on the court and running laps around ovals. All during summer, where most people are enjoying drinks with friends and relaxing having BBQs in the sunshine; netballers are sweating up a storm, drinking and eating healthy (trying) and making sure we are physically and mentally prepared for the upcoming  season. 

The NSW Swifts officially started our 2012 campaign in early January. It was great to finally get the team together and start training as one unit (minus one player, Kristy Guthrie who recently got married and was relaxing somewhere on her honeymoon). The training has been tough, but the girls are looking the goods. Everyone is putting in the hard work, and I’m sure they are also, like me, counting down the days until we finally get to slip the red Swifts dress on and play some nettie!

In other netball news, the Susan Pratley Netball Clinics are back for 2012, and we are kicking off our first clinic of the year in Young in February, and then continuing around NSW throughout the year.  Looking forward to getting out to the associations and teaching the young netballers of NSW some new skills, having some fun and  inspiring them to work hard and strive for their goals, and maybe they can teach me some new skills too. The search is on for the future NSW Swifts!

Not much else to report this early in the year, it is all the same thing- long hours and stories of training, training and more training. Hopefully I’ll have some more exciting gossip next month when we hit the court and start playing some pre-season netball matches. Stay tuned!