Exhausted but happy to win

AS WEEKENDS away go, Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia would not be the most obvious holiday destination.

As a business trip for a professional rugby player, however, Keith Wood and his team mates declared themselves strangely satisfied at being involved.

"Bizarre,” was Wood’s opening assessment as he reflected on the trip to play last Saturday’s World Cup qualifier with Russia in the industrialised city from the comfort of the Greystones clubhouse, a safe seven time zones away.

“Certainly, when you get back to the hotel on Sunday evening and someone says, ‘That’s it, 88 hours’, then that’s bizarre. It felt like longer than that on the plane alone, never mind playing a match and everything else.

“I’d have to say we were disappointed with ourselves from some aspects of the game. Everybody knows we can play better than that and everybody knows we can do different things. But it’s very hard to be critical, especially when you see how bad everybody was before, during and after the match.

“You don’t want to say anything at first because you’re not using it as an excuse, and I’m still not using it as an excuse but we had one player who slept for 20 hours out of 24, he was that tired, before the match.

“It was funny, though, to see (the media) guys being shattered by the journey. We were very tired by the journey too but we also had to get our heads around the mental and physical preparation for a Test match, and in surpringly hot conditions.

“We think the weather is unpredictable over here but over there, the changes... the previous day was beautiful but it was unbelievably hot on the Saturday and freezing that night.

“We did try and meet people and talk to them and I even met a guy from Limerick who lives out there; I actually knew his boss, which was funny. So it was a whole variety of odd things.”

What struck Wood’s front row colleague Reggie Corrigan as odd was the fact that his legs deserted him midway through the first half.

“I did’nt feel that bad going out,” Corrigan began, “I actually felt good before the game. I managed to get a good bit of sleep and everything else was fine, but about 20 minutes into the game I was trying run towards a ruck and there was just nothing in my legs. They were very, very heavy.

“I think then, maybe by the start of the second half, I started to get back into it, I think we all did. We just had to get on with it. The pitch was very hard as well so there was a lot of pounding on the legs and studs were coming up through boots so it was a very uncomfortable sort of game to play in.

“Tiredness was a huge factor for the first 20 to 30 minutes but you just had to fight your way through it. After the game: total exhaustion. I just had to sit I the dressing room for 45 minutes just to recover, drinking water. I lost about four kilos during the game just through sweat, because of the heat.

“As well as it being physically exhausting it was mentally very exhausting too. Mental fatigue is a huge factor when you are trying to concentrate. If you are mentally fatigued it does affect your performance. You’re just finding that you’re half a yard off the pace in terms of making the tackle or getting to the breakdown or even being alert to a bouncing ball. Your reactions would be slower.”

And while Corrigan the prop was perspiring at the coalface, two-try full back Girvan Dempsey was in danger of expiring in the Siberian sun.

“The heat was a huge factor,” Dempsey said, his forehead glistening just at the thought. “I don’t think I have ever drank as much water during a game as I did last Saturday. It was just so draining.

“The physical nature of them (the Russian team) as well was a factor. They were big men and that in conjunction with the heat really sapped the energy.

“We’ve watched the video and you can see guys just weren’t on their toes. They weren’t in step, they were heavy legged and you could see there just wasn’t the spark we were hoping for.”

Wood agreed with his full back about the level of performance but was still prepared to look on the bright side of an unusual weekend’s work.

“We would have liked to have been better prepared in terms of performance,” he admitted, “but there was no way we could consider oursleves to the time zones and stuff like that. But it was enjoyable. I think it’s brilliant to be a part of a team to have played so far away. It was a great experience.”