First of all, Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends. I was fortunate enough to celebrate this holiday for the last 3 summers, and these celebrations are still great memories 🙂

Today marked the beginning of a very important week for me. This week is an added week with Derry, and I will be playing in at least one friendly if not two friendlies this week. My performance in those games will be very defining in the decision the manager will eventually make. So it is important for me to have another good week in training.

The session started like all others did, foam roll, mobility, and stretching. From here, we split off, with the 18 involved in the game went and did analysis from the game and the performance, while the other 8 of us went and put our boots on and went onto the field. We warmed up with Pearce and then did some plyometric work, then went into a 4v4 game, before Donal arrived from the other groups meeting and ran a passing drill for us. Our group then had to wait around for the other group to do the warm up, plyos and passing drill, before we all joined together to play 2 touch possession for what seemed like forever. When we thought we were finally done, we did more. The final segment of training was three different stations, 5v5 to goal, 4v4 possession, and 3 different types of running exercises. This was the longest session since I have been here and most likely the hardest too. The possession grids became difficult with fatigue and the wet conditions, but it was a challenge mentally too as some of the players got on my back with decision making, but I just kept on going. Finally we were done after being on the field for 2.30hrs.

We showered and then went and grabbed a bit of lunch, before we were back and took a big photo with 250 kids who were doing a summer holiday program. It was a loud few minutes with kids screaming like they do, but then we were out of there and off to the gym. The gym session went well, but just like training, when we thought we were done, there was more. 2 4min extra sets of various exercises. Oh joy!

Finally we were done, with the body barely hanging on, and thankfully a day off tomorrow. And during our gym session, the manager came in and gave the list of the team for the Wednesday friendly against Limavady. I will be playing in that game, along with a mixture of older and younger players. It will be a good opportunity to finally play and hopefully show what I can do on the game field, and give him a more developed picture of who I as a player.

Home for the afternoon to relax, watch a bit of tennis, and rest up!