Wheel Blacks tour the USA, 2008
10 days into January and the Wheel Blacks are boarding a plane bound for Los Angeles: the 2008 season is underway.
Not that it ever really ended…. there was a bit of a break after the frustrating loss to the USA in Christchurch at the World Champs in ’06, and then we were straight been into it: the conditioning of course, as well as the food diary’s and nutrition classes, the psychology sessions, and the sometimes enjoyable, sometimes painful video analysis sessions as we work out what we do well, and more importantly what we have to do better.
But back to this trip: A tour to the States, reminisce of the 2004 tour where we went unbeaten, defeating Belgium in the final of the Coloplast International in Florida, followed by a win over Canada a week later in the final of the Demolition Derby in Alabama. Back then we had just come off a close loss to Australia in the decider of the 2003 Oceania tournament held in Chiba, Japan; this time we are hurting after being knocked out in the semi’s by the North American team that entered our zone for the 2007 Oceania tournament held in Sydney, Australia. In 2004 we were a lowly ranked 6th in the world; this time round our humility is once again in check with a world ranking of 5th.
To be honest though, the ranking doesn’t change too much in the grand scheme of things: even when we held the number 1 spot, despite seemingly popular perception, we never lost sight we were only as good as our last game. No matter what happens, the Wheel Blacks will always keep searching for something extra, try to make ourselves better, attempt to raise the bar every game. This game continues to evolve and grow as the competition keeps pushing the boundaries, making it harder and harder for little old New Zealand to compete….. and we wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s the great thing about this sport, and sport in general: if it were easy it wouldn’t be fun. It is the struggle, the uncertainty, and the euphoric feeling that occasionally occurs when things come together at the right time that keep us going day in and day out.
That is what this tour is about – we are set to do the hard yards now in order to reach our end goal, which looms large as Beijing approaches quickly. We know we have a lot of work to do between now and then. We have a new player to blood: Auckland 1.0 Adam Wakeford. We have new lines to establish, as well as old lines that need to re-establish themselves. Above all we will use this opportunity to bond together, through the trials and tribulations that come from a bunch of quads travelling to the other side of the world.
We have a lot to gain from this tour as we continue on our quest to once again go up against the world and come away with the Gold. Stay tuned to www.wheelblacks.com for updates.
Cheers, Dan Buckingham