Budapest Beckons

www.doodle.com has become a regular feature on our weekly info mails to the lads. It helps us with planning of attendance for training, tournaments and giving lifts. Yesterday afternoon we had 7 registered to attend training. I was not happy. It was the first night out at the BSB and I suspected some of the lads would be put off by the trek out by tram or car in rush hour traffic. We've rented the best pitch they have so decent numbers would be needed to justify that.

In the past, we used nearly go round to lads workplaces and hold their hands to bring them out there. Now we just send the list of possible drivers and tell lads to organise themselves. Still, Olof Gill of all people, called me at 18h10 (training at 19h) wondering where the meeting point for the lifts was. Naturally I referred him to the communication in the mail but he said he had no time to read it. No time to read that but enough time to engage me in gmail chat whilst said mail was sitting in his inbox in front of him!! Anyway, he pulled a lift out of the back so was spared. Remarkably it was the only call I received. Progress.

My mood improved as everyone trudged in on time; all 19 of them. Training has been fairly low key since Munich and I've been much quieter at training. Before our trip to Bavaria I was more vocal than at any point of the year as I tried to make everyone aware of the need to raise everything a few notches from Benelux. It didn't work so the approach possibly needed adjustment. One disappointing point since is that the majority have been happy to continue in the roll of follower rather than leader. You would be hard pressed to pick out the guys who have noticeably tried to drive things on since. Guys need to be less passive and step-up because the few they rely on to do it won’t always be there.

In any case, it is this week that is most important and last night's session went fairly well. We've some proper selection headaches with 29 guys travelling. Last year there was a fairly clear division between the Championship and Shield panels with little or no movement between the two. The group is much more even now and we have tried to give fellas a chance if they are showing well. It is a horrible task as you are always open to the accusation of subjectivity but it is very hard to have justifiable objective criteria, especially in the situation we find ourselves here with transience, business travel, personal upheavals etc being regular distractions,

Thursday night will be our last outing before we fly east on Friday. The panels should be communicated beforehand and then it will be all systems go. The Championship panel will have one or two guys returning which will give more depth to the team and the knock-on effect of that will strengthen the hand of the Shield team, who have a strong look about them. Still, just like all the talk about what we would do before Munich, in many ways, who you have, is not necessarily what matters, it's what they have and will bring to the show that matters.