My weekend with the Russian Women's 7s Team

Why haven't I wrote in a weekend? Well, I was afforded the opportunity to spend the bulk of this past weekend escorting the Russian Women's 7s Team around Houston, TX.

Practice in the Houston fog

The Russians (and the Dutch) arrived one week ahead of time to conduct a 7s camp. This was more for acclimation and catch-up work. Even though this is the same team that took the field in Dubai with one absent exception, they have not played as a unit since Dubai. The 16 players are from four different clubs across Russia and distance keeps them from staging a camp in country.

Christine Buzzard of the USA-Russia Chamber of Commerce and I met the team at Bush Intercontinental on Friday afternoon, helped them to move to the Avis terminal, then had them follow me to their hotel. By that time, it was late and everyone was tired.

Kitting up for Practice.

Saturday kicked off with a brief tour of places in Houston that they would get to know well over the next few days plus a stop at T-Mobile to get a temporary US SIM card for the coach's iPhone AND a stop at an Apple Store to buy an iPhone5, which apparently is much more expensive in Moscow. Saturday afternoon they conducted their first practice. On Sunday, they conducted two practices.

Russian practices are not much different from American practices. Coaches yelling at players. Players admonishing each other. Players encouraging each other. Drills. Fitness. Team Huddle. However, Coach Pasha Baranovsky, former #8 for the Russian MNT, mixed his drills so that the team began running individual skills' drills that most players will run at 1/2 pace naturally, then moved to small-unit drills that they ran at 3/4 pace naturally, and finally peaked the team at mid-to-full unit drills that the team ran at top pace.

My new Rugby Tie!

This is a youthful team. They are not satisfied with how they placed in Dubai. They want to play well enough to earn a core spot on the IRB's Women's 7s World Series (WSWS). I think they'll do well in Houston. They're in the right pool to place in the top 6. Additionally, they warm-up on Brazil and Japan before they meet Australia on Day 1.

If they play the Eagles on Saturday, I'll root for the Eagles. But, otherwise, I'll be rooting for the Mama Bears. I'll be spending all week with them, they'd kill me if I said anything else!