FEATURE: Enduring a Dragons fitness session

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Posted by rrburns 1994 days ago under News

The Dragons took another monumental step towards the Asian Champs weekend in Jakarta last night with the final fitness session at the hands of Mike the Masochist, the team's dedicated personal torturer, sorry, trainer.

For this writer, the later start time of 7.30pm enable my first Wednesday night session for season 2006. It therefore came as something of a relief to know that the weekly sessions had been building inexorably towards this, the most gruelling night of all.

What followed was a pleasant evening in the Killing Fields.

* A brisk 1km 'warm up' lap on the inner track, interspersed with spell of 'looseners, such as lunges, squats, sumo walks et al.
- Finished the lap feeling good and ready for a beer. "Nice work fellas. Well run," I offered by way of encouragement to my teammates. They only returned slighltly disguised looks of mild condescension. They'd been here before.

* Jog over to the driveway running under the grandstand. In pairs, embark on five uphill sprints. No breaks. No walking. Legs wobbling. My partner, Adrian digs deep and wills me along with him with solid encouragement.
- Now completely knackered. Hot. The stifling heat in the driveway underpass was nice too.

* Without breaking stride, we segue into a 1.5km lap of the racetrack. In single file the last man sprinting to the head of the queue. Indian sprints or something. Attila the Hun sprints more like. Some heartening post-sprint words from an otherwise Borg-like Mike help - because you know he doesn't give out praise easily.
- Feeling spent. Sucking air like house fire. Had been listening to Tom Petty's Breakdown on the way in. It's starting to sound prophetic.

* Off we trot now to the stairwell at the Central-end entrance. Five sets of sprints up the 3-tier stairwell. Yeah, why not?

THE WALL
Things at this stage are blurry. And not solely due to my lack of a short-term memory. And not solely due to my lack of a short-term memory.

* Now it was off to the other end of the track to do some exercises. But obviously to get to the other side of Happy Valley we had to run. Quickly. All the way outside, up and down stairs. Loving stairs. Once outside the ground, it was step-ups. 20 left. 20 right. Push-ups off the steps. Reverse push ups.
- Felt like a prisoner on day release. With all the free citizens staring at us. Just wanted to make a break and keep running all the way home. Should've.

* Continue run to interior of racecourse again. And again, no sedan chair on offer to get there.
- I try drawing on the strength of the Diggers at Hellfire Pass but have learnt nothing from the Thailand tour - had to keep asking Salty when it would end. Sorry Grandad.

Here it gets hazy. There may have been other drills but the brain is an amazing instrument and will, at moments of extreme trauma, block bad memories. Like the wake of a big night out, I can only try piecing together gaps. Back on the playing pitch, Mike Hunt devised a devilish new torture. He even started looking Japanese at this point, and i'm sure he was carrying a pistol and bamboo cane.

Andrew Scott: on yer bike, pal

* Mike forces us to try sprint 10 metres. Not far. Unless you have a teammate holding you by the waist and dragging you backwards. Legs felt like string. Teammate then lets go and sprint continues 20m, touch turf, sprint back to start. Repeat ad nausea. Graham 'Trotsky' Merrett has gone about his business with quiet aplomb. Respect.

*At last it seems all over. Not a kilojoule of energy left. Alas, homebaseis only the source of more torment. 200 (10x20) ab crunches of various design. With 30-second pose holds. That kinda thing. Now it's just getting silly.

* But it does end. An hour later. With much needed stretches and mental recuperation. Ten good men have done well.

Scotty is heard talking to Mike about going for a bike ride. Any talk of exercise at this point is just alien. Even disrespectful to the likes of Corky, by his own admission, and myself.

If nothing else, this session showed just how hard you can push yourself if motivated. Between now and Saturday night of the Asian Champs, every Dragon must do just that. Let's get into it fellas. Seeyas Sunday. Get the Cup back.

Craig Bogan Francis

More tune in to Dragons exploits

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Posted by rrburns 2001 days ago under News
Hearteningly, The Netherlands made its first appearance on the list of countries with readers, coming in at 18th spot
The global brand that is The Dragons Aussie Rules continues to soar, with the latest web stats report showing page views doubling for the second successive month and the number of unique visitors logging onto the site improving markedly.

Readers logged on from 37 countries, up seven on June 2006. (See top 10 charts below).

The actual number of different readers of the site (unique visitors) grew by almost 30 percent to 877 for the month of July. In an encouraging sign that readers liked what they saw, that 30 percent read 50 percent more pages. The total visitor numbers was more than 1,500, up from last months 1,000. Total 'page views' doubled from 20,000 to 40,000 although no-one seems to be entirely sure what this means.
(Further, total 'hits' went from 50,000 to 91,000 but again, any advice welcomed on what that means).

Friday July 7 saw our number of unique visitors set a single day record of 112, beating the previous month's breaking news day when two Dragons were named in The Age as the greatest ever (Chinese) footballers.

Friday and Tuesday were the most popular days and 3pm-4pm, as people drifted off after lunch at work, was the busiest hour on average.

TOP TEN READERSHIP BY NATION
July top 10.................June
United States................United States
China............................Singapore
Thailand........................Thailand
Singapore.....................Great Britain
Great Britain.................China
Japan............................Switzerland
Bahrain.........................Austria
New Zealand................Argentina
Philippines.....................Germany
Myanmar.......................Philippines

(All tables exclude Hong Kong and Australia, which represent about 80 percent of our readership)

Among the newcomers pressing for a place in the charts this month were Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico and Canada.

Ghana led the way for Africa while a couple of chancers from Senegal and Sudan happened across the site. There is also room for a better co-ordinated marketing programme in South America, where only a handful of Colombians tuned in (possibly 'social workers' from 'Colombian Corner' at Fenwicks spreading the gospel).

To keep the traffic flowing, not to mention entertaining yourself, please check out the updated photo gallery for the recent tri-nations. There are also some new, artful black and white snaps from the 2005 Singapore vist added (contribution from Killa). Also a handful of new player profiles. Take a look.

Any gossip for the Firebreather column welcomed via media@hk-dragons.com

Craig 'Bogan' Francis

Momentum builds for 'most open' Champs

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Posted by rrburns 2001 days ago under News
 
Aerial view of Jakarta: Our low-key hotel is somewhere in there
Saturday, August 12
A full-sized touring squad turned out for training Saturday and put on a display of such precise synchronicity, even our growing Swiss website readership would have been impressed.

For the second successive week, south-western Hong Kong Island could bear witness to the finely tuned timepiece that is the Hong Kong Dragons.

In the penultimate training run before the coveted Asian Championships round robin tournament in Jakarta, the Dragons put in what coach Rigg described as "one of the best since my time at the helm".

On unfamiliar astroturf at the Stanley Ho sports complex, 25 players ran a series of drills with an air of determined alacrity. The mercury was topping 34 degrees for the mid-day hitout, with a player comfort level reading several degrees higher than that.

First-year player Colin Mitchell introduced an excellent new drill, that promoted a lot of talk, backing up, handball and accurate footwork. The added incentive of getting it right or getting a group penalty of 100m sprints in the sweltering heat added to the resolve.

This year's Asian Champs are shaping up as arguably the most open of the century. The Dragons are shaping up well, with a new-look lineup that brings the biggest influx of (relative) youth into the side yet seen in a single season.

But the season has also offered the least amount of international football in a season for many years, leaving the side largely untested.

Singapore, although easily dispatched in Hong Kong by the Dragons and Shanghai, will offer a tenacious defence of their title. Bali, who finished second last year, have won some impressive games this year and look good. And Japan (third last year) loom as a danger side, one the Dragons have yet to meet.

The Jakarta Bintangs will benefit from home ground advantage. They are rumoured to have recruited well as they try to recapture the glory days of 2002, when they were unbeatable in the Asian Champs in Singapore.

Thailand will also be expecting to achieve their best-ever champs result, having drawn a game against a strong Dragons touring team in western Thailand earlier this year.

Training returns to Happy Valley this Sunday.

Saturday, August 5
Picture Moorabbin Oval on a wet July afternoon and then imagine playing on that surface in your slippers. That was pretty much the formula for the Dragons last training session at Sandy Bay

As the countdown to the Jakarta tour wound down to a few more training runs, it was clear a good-sized squad was pressing for selection.

The squad had intended to train on astro-turf but a booking fiasco to rival the recent Ashes ticket sales saw to it that we were elevated to the University cricket ground.

No bad thing, except it was sodden underfoot and everyone had rocked up in sandshoes. The session threatened to deteriorate in Disney on Ice but instead proved to be a lesson at going hard and straight at the footy - lest you make a Goofy of yourself.

About 18 players fronted up, including new boy Andrew 'Brushie' Brushfield who looks a handy acquisition for the future (but is not touring Indonesia).

Others to show some panache were Leroy, Salty, Mrad and Colin Mitchell. Former president Farmer announced what the Dragons were just longing to hear, that his 50th game will not be his last. Older than Bobby Simpson when he made his Test comeback but far less effective, the Farm has reneged on his widely-publicised retirement.

Fitness training continues on Wednesday nights. Check the Calendar on the left-side menu of the website for training dates and locations.

On the subject of the website, please check out the updated photo gallery for the recent tri-nations. There are also some new, artful black and white snaps from the 2005 Singapore vist added (contribution from Killa). Also a handful of new player profiles. Take a look.

Any gossip for the Firebreather column welcomed via media@hk-dragons.com

Boges