Juan for the road – Friday

Off to the Captain’s run, not much of an event but John Eales was there so I guess it meant something. Started at 11.00 am and the lights at Canberra Stadium had to be turned on, so shit was the weather.

Warm-up took longer than usual as it was so fucking cold, James O’Connor copped a pass fair in the boat-race from Robbie. Luckily it didn’t leave a mark so he’s still got the boyish good looks that can make or break an endorsement contract.

The rest of it went off without a hitch and the fastest the players moved all session was back to the heated changed rooms when Robbie blew the whistle for the end.

Back to the Hotel for the pre-match press conference, the players had to change room mates on their arrival so it was interesting to see the blokes who had traded up, and those who had traded down.

The press conference was the usual grey-blanket affair. Of note however, was how much Morty is starting to sound like Robbie by using words like “destiny”, “group” and “unique”. He hasn’t quite perfected it yet, but it’s still early in the season.

After the press conference it was free time for the Wallabies to do as they pleased. Some of the younger blokes went straight for Facebook to update their status, while Gits and Drew Mitchell went to the hair salon.

Al Baxter was last seen heading toward the National Library to check out the original drawings Sir Watler Burleigh Griffin made of the Nation’s capital and catch up on some light reading whilst trawling through the National archives.

It was good to get an insight of how some of these blokes spend their spare time.

While the Wallabies were dispersing, the Cronulla Sharks booked into the same hotel – I’ve got a fair idea about how they spend their spare time, so I didn’t hang around.