Hi everyone!

Today was a very eventful day for the team! Unfortunately you’ve got me writing about what happened, but I’ll try to do my best! 😅

Today started very relaxed as we didn’t have training. This meant everyone could wake up and head down for breakfast when they felt like it. 😴

While Tim and a few others headed off early to IKF meetings, a few of us, bored in the hotel, decided that we would head down to the beach. 🏖 We got stuck waiting for Nik to finish his shower, but eventually headed off.

During our walk we followed Zac’s lead and got off the main streets. Heading down a bad street, we got about halfway down before we started getting followed by two guys. What happened next is a bit of a blur! One guy walked in front of Lauren C and myself and pulled out a switch blade. Before he opened it Lauren gave him a good shove, but then he pulled out the knife (apparently it was a pretty big knife) and tried to grab my phone, while the other guy attacked Sharyn trying to grab her necklace. Jazz grabbed Sharyn’s attacker and threw him to the ground while Zac got the other guy in a headlock.

The guy with the knife made a second attempt to grab my phone but there was no way I was letting go of that! Jazz popped over and threw him to the ground as well before some of the locals came to help and forced the attacker to flee. The other guy also grabbed me and was pulling on my phone before Georgia threw a punch and pulled me back to the group. At this point a bit of a crowd had started forming and we didn’t know if they were there to help or hurt us. Luckily a few more guys came in to help, grabbed the guy with the knife and ushered us towards the end of the street. They then directed us to the police station across the road.

We stood around in the station and tried to order an Uber back to the hotel. Apparently even the Uber drivers don’t want to come to that area because we couldn’t get anyone to pick us up! While waiting the police offered to get a mini bus for us and follow us back to the hotel. We made quite an entrance with full sirens going!

Luckily nothing was stolen, and aside from a few small cuts to me and a sore hand for Georgia we were all fine.

After getting back to the hotel, the team hung out in the hallway where we bonded over the experience, played some games to lighten the mood and called Tim at the other venue to tell him what had happened.

On to lighter topics now! The hotel is no longer providing a buffet lunch, so we headed down stairs to the coffee shop to have a delicious lunch 🤤

We then headed back to the University Stadium to play Japan🇯🇵 in the last game of the day. It started close but we managed to pull away and won 21-13. A big congratulations to Lauren who debuted in that game (pictured above).

Thanks for reading!

❤ Amy