Hello all,

Our third day got underway with an 8.00am team breakfast where we met our new recruits for the first time. Jarman Impey, Mitch Harvey, Darcy Byrne-Jones and Karl Amon along with rookie recruits Sam Gray and Daniel Flynn all joined us after a 13 hour flight from Adelaide, arriving in Dubai at 5.30am.

Having experienced the same flight on Monday we could sympathise with how tired the new boys would be but, despite their fatigue, they were all outstanding with their enthusiasm and eagerness to meet their new team mates and get involved in training.

On first impressions they appear to be a very talented group. Jarman is already strongly built and looks like he loves to tackle with intent, Mitch has strong hands and great skills for a big man, both Darcy and Karl have pace to burn, Flynny is built like a brick wall and we all know Sam has enormous ability as evidenced by his great SANFL form in 2013.

At 8.30am, we all jumped on the team bus and arrived at Dubai Sports City at 9.00am for training preparation.

Before training we had a brief team meeting led by Kenny outlining the schedule for the day and also formally introducing the new players to the group. As part of this we got to see some of the highlights of our exciting new recruits which really got the whole team up and about. If you haven’t already seen their highlights make sure you check out portadelaidefc.com.au and I’m sure you, like us, will love what you see.

We hit the track for two hours of high intensity running and circuit work at 9:45am. What we all could notice was how each day was gradually getting warmer and warmer. After consecutive days of temperatures in the high 20s at the Dubai Sports City the mercury tipped over 30 degrees today with humidity rising to around 50 per cent. There is no doubt that the heat here in Dubai is different from Adelaide.
The conditions are consistently warmer over a longer period of time which is exactly what our fitness team are looking for!

After sweating it out with repeated running drills until midday we broke for lunch and were given the afternoon off by the coaches for some leisure activities to take in some of the Middle Eastern culture for the first time.

At around 2pm I headed off with a group of players to the Dubai markets at the “City of Gold”. Darren Burgess, who has been to Dubai a number of times with the Socceroos, recommended the markets to us as a must-see place to visit. He assured us that genuine gold and diamonds on offer were available for a steal although he couldn’t guarantee if they were all genuine or that some might have been high-quality fakes. After all a high-quality fake is so much better than a standard fake!

Hmmm…not sure about that.

Anyhow we had a great time enjoying some of the more urban culture of Dubai. The markets are far removed the standard opulence of Dubai and we enjoyed some great banter with the local shop owners who were trying to sell us everything from “genuine” watches and jewellery to traditional Middle Eastern robes.

After the markets we caught a taxi to the Dubai Mall, the world’s biggest shopping mall. This is one extraordinary precinct. It makes  Marion Westfield seem like the size of a postage stamp! As we walked in we were greeted by this incredible aquarium that is placed in the centre of the mall and is in full view of all patrons. One side of the aquarium would have easily been over 50 metres long and we stood for a while marvelling at the marine life swimming blissfully in the water.

By this time most of the boys were a bit peckish after the solid running session in the morning and set off to try and find the food court. Well after eight minutes and three flights of stairs we eventually stumbled upon the food court. Calling it a food court actually undersells it. It’s more like a food stadium covering the size of the Adelaide Oval and with every single culinary delight you can imagine.

At around 5.15pm we left the Dubai shopping mall and grabbed a taxi back to the team hotel. One thing that we’ve noticed about the Dubai taxi service is that they take no prisoners on the roads! They will zig-zag through traffic at 100 kilometres per hour, tailgate the driver in front centimetre perfect and not be afraid of using the car horn three times a minute. This driver was no exception and he got us back to our hotel safe and sound and in record time. It was an extraordinary piece of driving.

After a quick shower to freshen up, I met the team downstairs at 6.30pm and we headed off to a team dinner at the Hilton Hotel at Jumeirah Beach to complete another very rewarding day for our entire group.

We arrived back at our hotel after dinner at 9.30pm ready for a good night’s sleep ahead of another big day tomorrow which will include more intense running, followed by an Auskick clinic with over 120 local children from the AFL Middle East league.