...Tell Me How Am I Supposed To Play With No Shoes?

New shoes, everyone just loves the smell of 'em. The lucky person this week was Tania, judging by those legs.

Training was finally held inside Kompleks Belia after weeks of sweating outside on the open courts. (Which did prove to be tremendous foresight... as it poured immensely during training this week.)

Being early and with an empty court, Coach Jason took the opportunity to showboat a little: A spin-off here, a mazy dribble down the court, and shots; but very occasionally lost the ball.Lawren, seen here playing barefooted after an accident with a basketball, still showed up for training (one clap!) to warm-up the keeper, collect balls and take photos.

Still, before training could start, Coach Jason realized no one had thought to take the balls, meaning there was only one ball to be shared by fourteen players, so he left Kuan Yang in charge and drove away to get the balls.

So Kuan Yang made the players do a few running drills here and there before sitting them down to a tactics lesson, demonstrating a version of what he proudly called 'Spartan Spear'. He experimented with a few ways of actually drawing it out, and when sure he had hammered it into the players' heads, he called up...



...Miss Dunlops to do the honours and re-explain the drill (of course, with guidance from Kuan Yang). She nailed it, and by that time, Coach Jason had already returned, so now everyone could play.

Yay.

The players were then split into two groups, as usual, but before anyone else touched a ball, the players were again called to sit down, with top-secret stuff being talked about.

Then on to drills, drills and more drills.

When regrouped, the players repeated the Spartan Spear, this time to better effect.

BlueTable was preferred to Nicholas (no more flowing locks!) as keeper for the other goal, opposite Soon Khai.

And thus came the match time, seniors vs juniors, 5-on-5. The seniors, to their credit, did incorporate the Spartan Spear into their gameplay, leaving the juniors sometimes chasing shadows (although to be fair, only 3/4 pressure was allowed).

BlueTable did reasonably well as keeper.

This time the seniors sat out, and the juniors, still full of energy, played a 3-on-3.

Training being brought to a close, Calvin and Mikey here posed for Lawren, the photographer...

...as Kenny and Nicholas showed they were still little children inside (shame on you..).Some players were noticeably missing this week; Roselyn from fever, Megan as always, Sanjeevan as lately becoming; but the players gladly welcomed back Coach Jason and Kuan Yang from APAC in Australia, wiser and more experienced after their national caps.