International Cup 2005  - Report #1 - by Jeff Persson Monday July 25, Nashville, Tennessee In 2002 The Australian Football League hosted the first ever International Cup of Australian Rules Football, in Melbourne, Victoria. The US was one of 11 countries to send a national team to compete in the tournament designed to bring more notoriety to the national sport of Australia. As most of the countries have only been playing the sport for a short period of time (less than 10-15 years), and it is at a non-professional level, the teams were comprised of amateurs. The US squad acquitted itself rather well, going 3-2 in the round robin of pool play, defeating South Africa, Canada, and Samoa, while losing to New Zealand and eventual winners Ireland. In the playoff match, the US defeated Nauru for 5th place. I am here again in Melbourne in 2005 for the second International Cup and will be sending in reports that track both how the team is doing, and my escapades as an umpire. Hopefully, readers will enjoy hearing not only how the team is performing this time around, but also gaining a little insight into the officiating aspect of the game and a little bit about Melbourne. Monday July 25th, 2005 Nashville, Tennessee The count down to the second International Cup is now two days away for me. It has been three years since the historical first Cup was held in Melbourne, the home of Australian Football and I have been looking forward to getting back. The workday is nearly over: one more meeting before I head home to start packing. As I head to the meeting, I miss the bottom step of the stairs and twist my ankle: shooting pain tells me I may have just taken myself out of the rotation. The rest of the evening is spent at the ER and trying to assess the damage. Final analysis is that it likely is not bad and I should be OK. Still, this means an email to Andrew "Boyley" Boyle to let him know not to schedule me this coming weekend for warm up matches at Dandenong, and to Neville Nash at the AFL to possibly line up a replacement for me. Better to give them the heads up than to show up in a bad state. Tuesday July 26th, 2005 Nashville, Tennessee Work requires travel to Detroit, Michigan today but I should be back by 4 pm, with plenty of time to pack: tomorrow I leave for Australia! But wait, Mother Nature has other ideas. After 8 hours of delays due to weather messing up the airline logistics, I finally get home around half past midnight. and I still need to pack and prepare to be gone for almost three weeks. Finally, at 6 am, everything is in readiness. I figure I can sleep on the plane. Wednesday July 27th, 2005 Nashville, Tennessee Today is the day! I run my final few errands (like picking up spending cash and mailing out the bills), I am all checked in at the airport when the announcement of the two hour delay is made! Oh no! I have less than 90 minutes to make my connection and that means I miss my Qantas flight. After several phone calls, I am re-routed from Northwest to American and will now arrive in LA in time to make the flight. After "only" two hours of being delayed, I am at the baggage carousel in LA when the sickening feeling hits: there are no more bags coming and mine is not here. I will be in Australia with only the clothes on my back. Apparently, my bag never made the transfer (even though the baggage handler at American told me he had it!). Now the plan is for me to make the flight and for my bag to follow a day later. The report is filed and I have to trust that everything will work out. It is off to Australia now. I also have the same sense of deja vu from the last time I traveled to the Cup: in 2002, my paper ticket on Qantas made it to the terminal in LA only an hour or two ahead of me after a ridiculous number of errors (you can read about that in the 2002 Journal available on line in the archives!) I can't wait for 2008 to see what happens next time! At the gate, I run into the entire Canadian Northwind team, which you can't miss as they are a sea of red polo tops and navy blue track suits, all plastered with the International Cup logo and the Northwind emblem. They are heading to the Gold Coast for a few days before getting to Melbourne (I am merely connecting in Brisbane for two hours). More déjà vu: on my return from Melbourne last time, I was on the same flight at the Northwind! Maybe I am really a Canadian and I was switched at birth in the hospital? Oh well, too tired to contemplate the next Lifetime movie for now. Friday July 29th, 2005 Melbourne, Victoria The flight over to Australia is 18 hours from LA (26 hours including travel from Tennessee), and there is a 15 hour time difference, so I "lose" a day and it is now Friday morning. Mark "Wheels" Wheeler collects me at the airport, which is quite a breeze when you don't have any bags that need to go through Customs! After checking on the status of my bag making it to LA and then making the next Qantas flight to Melbourne, we head off to the hotel and get checked in. Wheels heads off to prepare for the Revolution squad's arrival tomorrow. Boyley comes by after work we head off to his new house and I get to meet his fiancé, Michelle at a small dinner party. We watch Essendon edge Geelong 107-94 and I crash, hopefully now setting my body clock to Melbourne time. It has bee a rather long week where I think I managed to get about 8 hours total sleep in four days: the things we do for the love of this sport! Of course I would not have it any other way!