easter break

no training from wednesday 19 march to wednesday 26 march. the lady cranes have a week long easter break so the lady crane blogger will be on holiday 'til then.

enjoy your easter folks.

Prossy says ...

Prossy Nakakande, a recently qualified Industrial Engineer, and a new call up to the Lady Cranes squad has this to say … In Ugandan sports disappointments never seem to end. Seriously now, who of us doesn’t wish we were properly facilitated to make it to Tunisia? Ok, so let me sour grape for consolation. It’s Easter season and I’d definitely rather spend it at home with family and friends than with a Nation of Strangers. So come on girls, let’s look on the bright side (is there one?) It’s a busy year ahead of us and the best is yet to come.

On my part things couldn’t get better: I’ve just graduated from university (another addition to Uganda’s unemployed community) so rather than sinking into the despair commonly associated with jobseekers I’ve made playing rugby my part time job. No, I’m not paid. I’m part time on a voluntary basis. That aside it’s every sportswoman’s dream to represent their country and I have the heart, the love, the spirit and the will, throw in some skill and what more do you need?

Meanwhile as some of us wonder when our weekends will be given back to us (free of rugby) so we can hit the Entebbe beaches to chill out with our pals, others like Helen can’t believe the extent to which the alcohol - free horizon extends - right into 2009. That’s so far away … for the last two months it’s been almost impossible to catch her smiling on a Saturday evening.

To all the Lady Cranes, hide away the disappointment and let’s fly …

Dot speaks up again ...

Dot the rabbit says ... We were fully charged and ready to take the good news (or bad news) on who was on the team to Tunisia (or who was remaining behind). We got bad news alright and it was that we were all not going to Tunisia. We were so disappointed - all our hard training (muscle pulls, collapsing during roadwork … ) - but we were soon cheered by the news that we were going to host the world cup qualifiers and on top of that we had been invited for a 7’s tournament in S.A in August. There were also chances of an Elgon Cup encounter (15 aside) against Kenya.

To me the cancelled trip is a big blessing in disguise because we now have more time to prepare and get used to each other (I need to console myself). So girls for those who are still disappointed, heads up, let’s keep training hard and working on our personal fitness: Brace yourselves because although we are the Lady Cranes we will be more like a pride of hungry lionesses. We’ll meet on this page again. God Bless you all.

Brenda says ...

At 21 years, Brenda Kayiyi is the second youngest call up to Lady Cranes but she’s the hardest tackler on the squad. She says … Monday was a crazy day. We played a game and Helen who happens to be a rugby referee was reffing. At first my team had good attacking moves and we were also defending well. I was really enjoying it all especially the tackles but we somehow, along the way, we switched off and things stopped working out. I was so surprised when Charlotte gave me a handoff: I did not expect it and went flying backwards - into the mud! As for the ref! Ha! What a ref! When she saw that my team was being whipped, she stopped reffing and starting chasing after the opponents to tackle them!

chicken step and disappointment

monday 17 march: wet muddy pitch! yuck! we warmed up with fijian hold. instead of touching the ball carrier we had to hold her firmly so that counted as a tackle. we had a blast. i kept out of the mud. i attacked and defended on the dry side. warmed up we switched to set pieces: scrum downs, penalties, free kicks, 22 drop outs and lineouts. boda boda was doing her usual chicken run – i say chicken run ‘cos have you tried chasing after a chicken when you are about to slaughter it? the bird can sidestep and leave you flat footed. same thing with joan. she was also nicknamed boda boda ‘cos she dodges opponents the same way boda bodas dodge through kampala traffic and create mayhem. boda boda is so chaotic she confuses her own teammates: poor asha and ann who were both on her team ended up tackling each other – in the mud. aaii ya ya ya ya!!! all in all a good session. our defence is starting to work the way it should and in attack we are starting to click. still more work to do but we are definitely making progress.

we wound up with 5 metre one minute shuttle sprints then went down for our usual. 60 pressups abd sit-ups in 2 sets then the bridge. i was so proud of myself. i did 30 pressups at a go! that was the first set. the second set was not so good. i managed 20 then rested then went for the final 10. situps were all good (they’re becoming too easy) then the dreaded bridge.

training done we stretched and jero came to give us bad news while ambrose hovered in the background in case anyone fainted or something. the tunisia trip was off – despite their best efforts our union was unable to fund it. the good news was that we had a elite 7’s tournament in south africa in august to look forward to and uganda would be hosting the qualifiers in either july or september. we were all disappointed of course but in the ugandan (or should I say african) women’s world of sports such disappointments are part and parcel of our lives. there is never enough funding for our activities, so life goes on …

confused

saturday 15 march: hot, hot, hot! the early worms warmed up with the focus/coordination game then as numbers increased we moved to passing and defence drills. we went through them for an hour then mutaks took over. he split us into 2 teams and we went through set pieces and open play as well as restarts. he kept swopping players from one team to another so sometimes we’d would get confused. ann had been on my team at first then was switched but i forgot so passed the ball to her during play. charlotte took the cake though. she was on my team and at some point stesh was switched over to our team. christine kicked off and yogi received the ball and swung it to stesh who got the shock of her life when she was tackled by charlotte … haaa! priceless.

55 pushups, 55 sit-ups, bridge still at 60. HELP!!! i don’t have a stomach anymore!

mutaks and jero were meant to announce the team but they did not. it seems the trip to tunisia is still in balance. fingers crossed and breath held that the funding necessary for the team to travel will come through. i hope i don’t suffocate. after stretching we did our weights. i caught joan aka boda boda stuffing her short’s pockets with mobile phones in a bid to make herself a kilo or two heavier. ha! we all had to take off our shoes and empty our pockets before we got onto the weighing scale. joan was the lightest at 50.5kgs; christine doubled her at 101.5kgs. i was very near that – not 100kgs, i mean 50kgs.

scrummaging

friday 14 march: i warmed up early then practiced my drop kicks as the rest of the team warmed up with fijian touch. warm up done mutaks asked the forwards to go with veteran 7’s player, soggy, while he dealt with the backs. we worked on passing, realigning, understanding each other etc. for some reason we kept dropping the ball and mutaks for once actually looked annoyed. we did so many pressups as punishment.

word from the forwards was that soggy worked them to exhaustion: endless scrum downs versus each other with punishments (lots of running) dished out for the trio that did not get a good push going. from there it was scrummaging versus the scrum machine with soggy on it! if he did not feel the hit then the guilty trio was punished, that is, lots more running. tired of running the forwards opted for bigger hits and it soon became too easy for the girls so soggy added christine onto the machine to give them a lot more of a challenge. soon guys who had come to the club to enjoy a friday swallow had gathered near the touchline where the forwards were ploughing away and at first stared in open mouthed amazement as the girls did their thing then starting cheering them on for every hit.

at the end of the session mutaks informed us that the team travelling to tunisia would be selected the following day (saturday) after training. the session would be from 1pm to 3pm.

we went down for our usual: we’d clocked 50 pressups and sit-ups and the bridge still at 60. this time we did 25 pressups, then 25 sit-ups, back to pressups, then sit-ups then the bridge. it was tight going. alia gave us the first count for pressups and when she reached 18 she stuck on 18 until we almost ate her alive. yogi (in photo) took over the counting. we went through all our pressups and sit-ups then finished up with the bridge.

doc ambrose tended to girls with complaints. christine had a back injury and he took her through some exercises to assess how much pain she felt, where she felt pain and when. when she had gone through the first one she announced, “i’m not feeling so much pain but my thighs seem to be too heavy for me. it seems they are unfit.” !!!???!!!

hosts

wednesday 12 march: very long day at work so i got to training very late. i found the team doing defence - attack drills. i joined right in. the defence was looking good. the tackles solid and defenders working together all the time. attackers were hard pressed to get through. we wound up with 5 metre shuttle sprints for 2 minutes. then our usual: this time it was 45 pressups, 45 situps and bridge to the count of 60. we split the pressups into 2 sets: the first set was 25 and the second 20. it was hard going for all of us. most girls did the first 25 alright. i did 20 then struggled with the last 5. we took a 10 second break then started on the next 20. i did 4, then 5, then 4 then 7. no one managed to do the 20 flat out though some girls were pretty close. they ran out of steam at 17. our 45 pressups done, we moved to situps. we did them at one go then moved on to the bridge. aaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh! enough said.

i told the team that word was going round that CAR (confederation of african rugby) had appointed us (uganda) as the hosts of the women's qualifiers and the tournament would most likely be in july. there was a dead silence: july is only 3 months away ...

mad dogs

charlotte says ... First i would like to say i was disappointed that we did not have a game on saturday. i woke up so excited that we were going to play and my energy levels were high ... quite frankly i was a nuisance and my roommate was glad to see the back of me. before we got onto the pitch to train we watched the under 20's play the over 30's in a fun game and i wished i were 4 years younger (or 6 years older) - i could have played ...

Monday was not a good day coz had this sharp pain in my hip so i really did want to go for road work but i had to. i thought i would find a way to dodge running with the really fast sprinters coz of the pain ... actually after the first sprint i thought i had succeeded hiding myself in a group that is not so fast but Christine had noticed, and picked me out of it and put me in the group i was avoiding, that is with Helen, Joan and Hadijah. Easy for her (Christine) to do that, she was injured and was watching us sweat from the side. To forget about the pain and do the sprints really well, i used my special talent ... its called"imagination." i imagined myself being chased by hungry, fierce dogs and that i had meat tied on my legs. i know that sounds crazy but i had to find a way of pushing myself and it worked. Next week i should imagine myself being a superhero, you never know i could be as fast as superman ... but for now it's back to the reality of classes. i can't imagine a way out of that.

headache

monday 10 march: 10 minute fijian touch warm up then off we jogged to the hill. stesh accidentally tackled an innocent civilian in her path and the poor woman did not know what hit her. the rest of us managed to get to the top of the hill without any incident. dot actually reached there first and was bouncing up and down all set for the sprints. however, when we walked back to the sprints starting point she looked back up the hill and developed an instant headache. add dizziness to that mix and she was flat out by the roadside holding her head. end of session for her. we split into the usual same size/same speed groups and did our 10 sprints pushing hard all the way. we felt good, speechlessly tired, but good. next we did our 10 metre 1 minute continuous sprints. hadijah (in photo) sat out to time the minute as her knee was acting up.

it was one minute this time, maybe because prior to starting charlotte had threatened to shoot her if she prolonged the minute. ambrose was on hand and i think he was happy this time round - he had 3 casualties to handle.we jogged back to the club and hit the tackle bags. there were 3 bags up: hit one bag, back peddle 5 metres, hit the next bag, back peddle etc. we did 3 sets of that. girls were quite ferocious. it was good to see. our aggression all released we got down for our usual. this time we were up to 40 pressups, 40 sit-ups and the bridge to a count of 60. we did 20 pressups first had a 5 second break then went for the other 20. i did the first 20 ok, then on the second set gave out when i still had 2 to go. alia, prossy and ann were in the same boat so we finished our 2 together. we did 40 sit-ups at a go then the dreaded bridge. this time round we counted nice and slow up to 60 and girl did it hurt! when we thought we were done christine claimed she had skipped 10 pressups so the whole team offered to keep her company. down we went and we did 14 pressups instead – 7 crossing the right foot over the left and then 7 vice versa. i don’t think christine was being honest though. she was directly opposite me and i saw her do both sets of 20. i think she just wanted to do extra pressups. she loves them! our target of 100 a day will soon be a reality.

forgiveness

saturday 8 march: women’s day. we celebrated it by training in the hot afternoon sun. we warmed up passing the ball in groups of 7 up and down the pitch. nice long passes and depth is what mutaks was looking for. after that we worked on an attack move. a couple of explanations and demonstrations later, we had the gist of it. several repetitions later, mutaks got us to try and do it against a defence. hmmh. we will probably need to work on that more next week.

mutaks asked ann to stretch us but we first started with our usual. we were up to 35 pressups, 35 situps but the bridge remained at 50. we’re targeting 100 of each by mid april. i managed 24 pressups at a go then my arms gave way. the rest of the team finished theirs and before we could move on i confessed that i still had 11 to go. i struggled to finish my 11 but only only do them 3 at a time. the team joined me to encourage me so they actually did a total of 46 pressups to my 35. sit-ups were next but those were not so bad. we finished up with the bridge and we cheated by counting too fast. we forgave ourselves though :)

mutaks asked us to carry boots and sneakers on monday. i’m starting to enjoy the hill runs, seriously, and no, the heat is not driving me nuts.

2 weeks to Tunisia. it’s approaching the end of winter there. maybe it should rain here so we can acclimatise …

cement

friday 7 march: fijian touch warm up. asha bamboozled the opposition with her trademark tossing the ball over the person coming to touch her then catching it before it hit the ground and sprinting off for the try line. is that a forward pass to oneself? hmmmh.

warmed up, we worked on beating the opponent. first it was 2 attackers versus one defender then we switched to 3 on 2 and finished up with 4 on 3. full contact. failure to score meant 10 pushups. there were some spectacular big hits and the tackles were even more so. mutaks seemed to be enjoying it. hard to know but I could see his teeth so I guess he was smiling. he called a stop to it all when seeing the ball became a bi hard. it wasn’t even dark though. i think girls have to eat more carrots and less chocolates.

mutaks asked charlotte to stretch us. she first had us on the try line doing shuttle sprints to the 5 and back for about 1 minute. before we stretched we did our usual pushups, sit-ups and bridges. 30 pushups this time round. I finished 20 a bit comfortably then the other 10 wobbling all the way. i’m still the worst at pushups though prossy is not far behind. 30 sit-ups next: halfway through i could see ann (in photo) holding her knees to pull herself up. we did the bridges to a 50 - alia was leading the count and she counted nice and slow up to 20 then as our (and her) tummy muscles starting complaining she sort of speeded up the count. on 48 though she cheekily held us there for several counts. hmmpphh. we’re well on our way to having slabs of cement in lieu of stomachs!

comfortable

wednesday 5 march: fijian touch warm up then mutaks started us on ball handling, lots of it. he counted each dropped ball then made us do situps, pressups, starjumps for them. thank goodness he forgot about bupees! after that he split us into teams and had us working on attack and defence. that went pretty much ok. still some things to be ironed out but we’ll get there. ball work done, we moved to leg work. shuttle sprints between the try line and 5 – this time for 3 minutes with no break. we all pretty much did it comfortably. tunisia looms near and mutaks says soon we’ll be doing less fitness and ballwork and more game plan. we can’t be runners up this time round.

in photo: lady cranes in tunis ‘07

standing (left to right): hadijah namuyanja, asha sonko, helen buteme, stella bakole, christine kizito, herbert wafula (coach)

kneeling (left to right): sauda adiru, charlotte mudoola, winnie atyang, rachel kakaire, joan andika

old legs, young hearts

monday 3rd march: new month, new levels of fitness. we started off with a fijian touch warm up. at the back of our minds the dreaded hill loomed but we threw ourselves into the game wholeheartedly. when yogi came on, on her first touch of the ball she threw a dummy that sent alia scampering in the wrong direction then side stepped charlotte and left her clutching air (priceless) and still had enough gas in her to make a mad dash for the try line. when we were sufficiently warm we jogged to the hill with our TM, jero. we were to do 10 sprints up the hill. our team doctor, ambrose, was on hand in case anyone fainted, or pulled a muscle or whatever. i think he was a bit disappointed: they say doctors can never really be happy unless someone needs their services ...

harriet had forgotten her sneakers but that did not get her off. hadijah lent her hers as she had a knee injury and could not do the runs. as usual we sorted ourselves into same size, same speed. rachel (in photo) had missed training the whole month of february and cited lack of fitness as a reason to pair up with ann. there were protests all round: a prop and a winger?! no way!!! we decided to run in 3’s and 4’s rather than pairs so she ended up with charlotte, asha and myself. hmmmh. yes, she was unfit …

yogi found herself sprinting with 16 year olds half her size who wanted a taste of national team training so had joined us for the session. the youngsters were fleet footed and seemed to take a devilish delight in trying to outpace yogi. her pride on the line, yogi pushed herself all the way and made sure she kept the young upstarts in their place – behind her. fortunate landed herself both the TMs as her sprinting partners. unfit they may have been but jero was a former sprinter in her younger days so fortunate found herself having to go flat out to keep up with jero. on sprint 8, fortunate was ready to throw in the towel and jero laughingly teased her that her old legs and lungs had outlasted fortunate’s youth before taking off up the hill. fortunate followed suit and for the remaining sprints she and jero were literally neck to neck.

long sprints done we did our last set of sprints - continuous 1 minute uphill/downhill sprints over about 10 metres. we worked hard, knees up but after an age we wondered if we were running a 120 second minute or the regular 60 second minute. it’s true that when you are tired time seems to crawl by but i suspect that hadijah (who was sitting out and timing us) prolonged that minute to 2 minutes. we complained that the minute was stretching out too long but she ignored us. she probably would have prolonged the ‘one minute’ further but alia and brenda looked like they were headed in her direction to strangle her so she hastily called us to a stop.

we jogged back to kyadondo rugby club and finished up with 20 pressups, 20 situps and bridges for a count of 20. i did 19 pressups without stopping. i think i was so excited that i ran out of energy to do the last one. bummer! good to know that i am not the only one who struggles with pressups: prossy reached 15 then fell flat on her face … yes, we are definitely getting fitter.

end of feb

friday 29 feb: neither mutaks nor doc were able to make it for the session so we handled it by ourselves. there are loads of scrum downs and kick offs in 7s so we focused on those the entire session – both from the attacking and from the defensive perspective. we had a 7’s club tournament the following day so we played ‘firm’ hold rather than full on contact. for every error made the entire team had to get down for 10 press ups. i’m getting better at those. soon i’ll be able to do 30 without long breaks in between. the session was short although rather intense and the month’s training was done. it's the beginning of march now and the tunis tournament is only a couple of weeks away ...