2018/CW20 Tournament Gif-sur-Yvette MO

The Swiss Steinböck team, lead by his captain Thomas and his geeky coach Nick, went to Paris (or rather its far-away suburb) with the ambition to gain experience as a team, and to work on the different moves trained sfor the past year.

The day before the tournament was quite relax : for the ones who arrived early they had the pleasure to get lost in this cahotic area with many work construction before finding the hotel. For the others arriving late, it was a straigt-to-bed evening without dinner.

After a complete and energic breakfast, the team arrived early at the stadium so that everyone can prepare and get ready for this very long day ! Thanks to Matt, the team had the chance to get a very personnal warm-up before and cool-down after every games.

On the menu : 4 games in the morning and two in the afternoon.

At 9, first game against CSSC Phantom. After a tight first-half (3-4), the steinbock lost a bit of structure in their game and the final score was 7-3.
Second game was against Roosters, which is actualy the hosting team of Gif ! Despite several occasions to score, the game ended to a new defeat 0-4.
11.30, new game against Toulouse, mostly known for its rugby tradition. Unfortunately, Nick's back had already too much Touch and we had to continue the day without our playing-coach. Game ended to a 3-0 defeat, it was time to get lunch and some energy to fill the batteries!
After a quick barbecue, it was time to get back on the field, for a game again London Otters. The pace and the skills of the English were too sharpes for our Steinböck who lost 7-1.

With a short squad of 10 players now, the tireness was more and more present in the legs, but the enthousiam was not gone ! A fifth game against Boularians, before the final one against Dutch Lions. Despite the presence of some players from the female team to encourage our players, the Steinböck were lead 3-0 in the first-half. After a few adjustments and a better defence, as well as more structure in attack, the Steinböck came back in the game. Unfortunately that was not sufficient to reach the success. But the essential was elsewhere : this team has been able to face high-level of Touch all throughout the day and to play together to gain experience.

After the finals and the ceremony, a new barbecue and a well deserve party ended this day. But the the week end wasn't over !

On Sunday, our Steinböcks had the chance to play games against different French teams : MXO, SXO and M30.
This time, Nick arrived prepared with his drone to catch any details of the games.
The three games were again an opportunity to work on the moves and to get ready for the Euro this summer.

After this busy morning, a good meal would have been well deserved. Unfortunately, the very typical crêpes restaurant of Gif was closed, and our players had to find another place for the last team meeting of the week-end. After that, it was finally time to go back to Switzerland. See you at the Euro !