This morning, the Jamaicans were up early to have a well earned day off. With their tournament over now and their fate now in the hands of the Canadians, its a waiting game to see who wins the Atlantic Cup. The Jamaican players travel to Orlando and will stay over night there to relax. This is a big thing for many of them. The domestic based players, many of them out of the country for the first time, get to see what America is like. Some of the team management are staying here in Jacksonville to have their own break.
Steve Mascord and myself decided to have a break from work as well. We dropped Dane Campbell, assistant manager for the Jamaicans, at the airport. He was heading back to Australia. We had a great chat about the future of Jamaican Rugby League and where they are going to take things, I’ll write an article on this a bit later. After leaving the airport, Steve and I did a bit of sight seeing and Christmas shopping. We went to downtown Jacksonville to the Landing.
On our way back, we swung by EverBank Field which is where the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team is based. It holds about 70,000 and has actually seen professional Rugby league played there in 2001.
So tonight is another night off. I’ll be heading to Jacksonville beach or Neptune beach for some chow, Steve is catching up with a friend so will be out. Have seen the USA team getting treatment for niggling injuries.
But my day actually started late in the night, so working away to get the match report out last night, Brian Lowe and company from We Are Rugby came back from having dinner and a few drinks. Steve and I were in the Lobby working and so ended up just having a few beers and a chat with the WAR guys. However yesterday I was sick for most of the day… I had the attack of the Bombay Belly, except it was due to the local burger joint called Whataburger. Imagine McDonalds except much dodgier. So last night I spent all day and night fighting a stomach doing gold medal back flips. Anyway wont be making that mistake again.
Anyway there has been a more serious incident involving the players here. One that could have ended in tragedy. So some of the players Paul White, Wayne Retti, Junior Branford, Tyronie Row and Jamaican liaison David were on their way to dinner when David was pulled over for speeding. Now this is no biggie, it happens, but while the Police Officer was going to check David’s details a car drove by and took some shots at the Police Officer. One of the Jamaicans jumped out to check on the officer, but he had his gun un-holstered and was screaming for them to get out of there… so they did. No further word on what happened to the Police Officer that night. Steve Mascord talked to some of the players and wrote up the incident. When Steve and I got back to the hotel Wednesday night and were told what happened the boys seemed to be in good spirits and were able to laugh about it a bit. Fortunately it didn’t effect their performance on Thursday.
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