New Blog Post: Kieran Govers

It has been a hectic month … and a bit. I have been a jet setter of late, the frequent flyer points are happy but I think the body has had enough of travelling for the time being!

First stop of our European Tour was the Visa International Test Event in London.

We didn’t know what to expect when we got there, the only thing we knew was that it was going to be cold! Leaving Perth at 25+ degrees and going to a place where it was a top of 15 was a shock! As you can see in the photo the long sleeves (thanks BSc!) were needed!

We went through the tournament with a lot of ups and downs. We had some wins, draws and losses and took a while to adapt to the condition of the turf – we got through it though and hopefully it won’t be like that on our next visit.

It was great to play in front of an amazing crowd. Day one was 4,000, day two 6,000, day three 8,000 and around 10,000 on the final day where we lost to the Germans in the final…not the result we wanted to end on.

We then ventured onto Belgium for the 2^nd part of our tour. It was a bit of a change from London going from security guards and event staff everywhere you go, to having to watch out for horses trying to jump the fence onto the hockey pitch! This trip was a bit more successful with 2 wins from 2 games, playing a less experienced Belgium team but they put up a great fight. Myself, Butters (Matthew Butturini) and Orch (Simon Orchard) were also able to catch up with our long lost Aussie turned European friends!

We got a little bit of time to relax while there so we checked out the city of Antwerp.

Part 3 of the tour took us to Mannheim, Germany. This was the last stop of the tour so we knew that we wanted to end the tour on a high with two good performances against the same German team that beat us twice in London.

It didn’t start off to well when myself and roommate Liam DeYoung got left behind for a training session! We were on level 8 (The Pent House!!) of the motel and everyone else was either on 6 or 7. We were just cruising around in our room as you do before heading off to training and DY looks out the window to see the team leaving on the buses so we head down stairs to depart for training to see that every bus has left and we are the only 2 left! It was 3:21pm and as we got told in the morning we were departing for training at 3:30 so we thought we were early. When we saw that everyone had left we decided to re check the door with our schedule on it to see that it had changed to 3:15pm! So I think jealousy kicked in as we had the top floor!

We beat Germany in a 2 game series 2-0 which was a good way to end the tour.

It was a long tour in the end, nearly 4 weeks of travelling around and living out of a suitcase. The hardest thing personally is making sure you eat at the right times and the right food. As countries have different varieties of food, I like to stay rather simple and stay with the things I know and trust!  You end up eating out a lot due to not having the facilities to cook or keep things stored and cool in your room. I was able to sneak one of my favourite meals in while in London!

After the long tour I was able to head home to Wollongong for 4 days to take time out a relax with family. I was able to swing by my favourite chicken burger shop (Chicko’s) and get my schnitzel burger fix before I return back to Perth. I also went to watch the mighty Dragons play Souths where we were robbed by 1 point in golden point extra time!

Stay tuned for my next blog!

Keep up to date with Kieran on twitter: @Wizza27!