Blog #2 – Sorry Jimmy

Dear friends and delicious friands,
 
We have a new weights competition; I’d like to explain it for you. Have you ever watched Deal or no Deal? It’s nothing like that, but it’s an entertaining - albeit irrelevant - show nonetheless. Anyway, with the old system, each player was tested to see where they’re at in their development. For instance, after the testing, James Bennett has been put into the development category of ‘pre-pubescent’ while Cain Ackland is instead placed in the ‘more-brawn-than-brains-even-though-he’s-fairly-smart’ category. Other categories include ‘as expected’, ‘beefcake’ and ‘Owen Weatherly’ (which has no members currently).
 
So now, in the interest of getting a little bit of spirited competitiveness between players in their weights, supercoach Josh Francou has devised a plan. Each player gets tested still, but they’re now tested based on your maximum weights lifted versus your total body mass with a prize for best results. This hurts me, ranking wise. I’m one of the heavier players in the squad so I’ve had to devise a plan; listen closely my childrens. Instead of actually trying to get stronger – which, to me, seems as though it would involve a whole lot of inconvenient ‘effort’ – I did two things: first, I watched Danny Deckchair starring Rhys Ifans. Then I placed an order with Peter’s Party Supplies for some helium balloons. When it comes time to weigh in, it’s a simple case of tying several hundred of them to my singlet, adequately distracting our fitness guy, Dave ‘Rubbish’ Binney, and watching as the needle spins around to 40kg. The only way I can see it going wrong is if I miscalculate the balloons and end up beyond the stratosphere. I often say that ‘beyond the stratosphere’ or ‘sky high’ is the level I want my footy skills to be at, but I never dreamed it could be a literal outcome.
 
We’re training mainly at Greenacres at the moment, but there seems to be quite a bit of moisture underneath the ground at the moment - I suggest it’s probably due to water. But it’s leading to some patches that are becoming so mushy they’re pretty much sinkholes. In fact, after the team was standing in a wet area for a prolonged period (while Josh addressed us between drills), we thought we’d lost Jimmy Allan to a sinkhole. Luckily it turned out he was just running through some grass that hadn’t been cut for a week.
 
Speaking of people we thought we’d lost Damian Cunningham and Andrew McIntyre have just returned from extended sojourns in India, where I can only assume they were doing ‘altitude training.’ They both came back looking like Forrest Gump after his three-year jog. Cunno’s beard was something to marvel at, especially considering his normally clean-cut, boy/metro-next-door appearance. But Macca’s took the cake – quite literally it seemed; it was so long there was at least a week’s supply of food caught in there.
 
Hugs,
 
Gilly #25

Nick's blogs from 2011