Today was our first day training, and was a great opportunity to blow off some cobwebs and get re-acquainted with korfs and korfballs. Training wasn’t too strenuous, with some basic skill drills and simple match simulation, but was still a lot of fun. I got to try out my new shoes, and safe to say, I’m very happy with them. A huge thank you has to go to Lammert, our host club contact, for organising them for me.

After training, we had a shooting competition against some of the youth players from KV Wageningen. Some of these kids were fantastic shooters, and we were hard-pressed to beat them at times. Luckily, Emily and Adam saved our blushes, and won the competition, and got a bag of lollies for their troubles.

Following the shooting competition, we had a bit of free time. I went to Bennekom, the next town, with several others of the team, to watch the DVO (another local club) 1st team play a pre-season friendly. As the DVO 1’s play in Korfballeague, the top flight of korfball, the game was of a high standard, and was fun to watch.

After dinner we all went back to De Anloop, the main sports hall for KV Wageningen, where we were organised into a carpool to go and watch Holland and Chinese Taipei play a practice game. This game was of an amazing standard, with 55 goals being scored in 40 minutes of korfball. It really did show us how hard we have to work to be competitive on the international level.

We get our first chance to really test ourselves tomorrow, as we get to play the KV Wageningen 3rd side, bolstered with some players from their 2nd side, as well as their A1 (top youth) side. This team is a bit of an unknown quantity, so is sure to be a good hit out.

Remember to keep checking the Facebook page and/or the National Teams page to keep updated with everything that’s going on.