Wednesday 5th May
Won our final two matches against teams who were ranked higher than us in the world rankings. We played outstandingly well against Malaysia running out five nil winners in temperatures reaching into the 80’s. Our final match was played in front of over 2000 spectators and it was screened live on Chile TV. We were really tired (four games in four days) but we managed to hold onto a 1-0 win to gain the silver medal in the tournament. We will now move up the world rankings and we are now looking forward to the Commonwealth games in India.
Aimee played really well especially in the Aussie game causing their defence lots of problems. I started all four games and my body is in need of some well earned rest (couple of days) before I start back training with my coach.
Many thanks for all your support - the rest of the squad are dead envious - Leigh
Saturday 1st May
We had a great result against the sixth ranked Aussies in Chile today. After defeating Ireland 2-0 we played very well and were unlucky to lose 2-1 in a closely run game. Both me and Aimee featured strongly in the game we were delighted to push the Aussies so close. We play Malaysia tomorrow at ten and hope to continue with our good from.
Monday 26th April
Like everyone else we have been hit badly by the flight delays over the past week. We were meant to leave on Sunday night from Edinburgh but our flight was cancelled. Our travel agent and squad manager Lynne have been working flat out for the last few days to try and sort out new travel arrangements. It seems the whole world is stuck in places they do not want to be in. We finally got the go ahead after hours of phone calls late yesterday afternoon that we were going to fly on Monday of next week. The tournament has been re scheduled and we now have no rest days in between the four matches we play. We all know that this is far from ideal but we realise that this is the best deal available. It has been a real roller coaster ride for all of us because we were one minute going to the tournament then the next we were looking to miss it. Australia (arrived nine days ago), Malaysia and Chile are all ready getting used to the high altitude and warm weather conditions which will be a real advantage to them.
We have spent the last few days doing some light training on and off the pitch in Edinburgh and we played a warm up match against Western Ladies last night in Glasgow. The Scottish Institute of Sport have been really good at adjusting our training programme and sleep patterns so that we will be ready to go when we arrive !!!
The next few days will consist of more pitch work, light recovery training and the coaches looking at video footage of our opposition in action. We cannot wait to get started on our travels and we even have a coach on standby to take us to Paris on Saturday if British air space shutsdown again !!!!
Hopefully our next update will be from Chile with good news from our first game.