Hi Port Adelaide fans and welcome to the seventh instalment of my diary as I try to keep you up to date with all the happenings on our player’s camp here in Dubai.

Today is our seventh consecutive day of training and including today we still have three more days to come.

Having spoken to all the boys, including the very experienced players like Dom and Kane, none of us can recall training this hard for such an extended period.

Despite feeling tired the entire group is very upbeat and supportive of each other as we know we are getting valuable kilometres into our legs.

This morning we arrived at the Dubai Sports City at the usual time of 9.00am in preparation for a 9.30am meeting and a 9.45am start.

After Kenny finished the team meeting we began training with our customary set of yo-yo running drills.

Following this warm up we then went into another high intensity running drill where the boys ran their hearts out under typically hot and dry conditions.

On the completion of the running drills we all paired up into one-on-one drills based around winning contested football both on the ground and in the air. I was paired with Angus Monfries who has immense power and strength for his size. As with all pairings, we had a really hard-fought, spirited battle against each other. The beauty for me, being pitted against someone as experienced as Gus, is that I got to learn so much from him in how he uses his body to win one-on-one possession.

After the one-on-one pairings the team broke into separate groups to work on specific skill areas from goal kicking and one-on-one marking to tackling and gathering ground balls.

At midday the boys finished and had lunch at the Dubai Sports City. At this point, because of the effort shown by the group so far over the entire camp, the coaches gave us the afternoon off to freshen up and relax.

Before we left our new development coach Aaron Greaves, Magpies coach Buddha Hocking and Kenny all spoke to us about the importance of developing every player on our list from the captain through to our rookie-listed players. The main message was that every player, regardless of their experience or success in the game, can and must improve for us to become a better football club.

After we arrived back at the hotel I enjoyed a short power nap and then spent the latter part of the afternoon having a look around the Dubai marina which is incredibly impressive. There are eateries and cafes for as far as the eye can see and on the water are a constant stream of million dollar boats and catamarans.

Just near the marina is the Marriot hotel which has an observation restaurant on the 52nd floor. I joined a few of the boys for a look up the top and we sat down for a coffee and took in the spectacular 360 degree views of Dubai looking over the gulf and then back over the city towards the vast desert region. We stayed for a couple of hours to take in the late afternoon sunset and early evening.

After my time at the marina I headed back to the hotel for a quick freshen up and then headed to the Al Barsha Mall just up from our hotel for a quick bite to eat.

While at this mall, the second biggest in the world, I looked for a supermarket to pick up some supplies for the remaining couple of days. Now it didn’t take me too long to find a supermarket and when I say a supermarket I mean a SUPER market. This thing was huge as are most things in Dubai. I stepped out the shop front to try and gauge the length and I counted 224 steps at around a metre a step. That’s right the width of the shop front is over 200 metres and they have a lazy 86 checkouts. After what seemed forever I tracked down my goods in the supermarket, went to the eight items and under checkout, paid and promptly headed for the nearest exit.

On the way out the massive indoor ski slope caught my eye. Yes, they have a massive indoor ski slope with chairlifts, penguins and even an accompanying ski lodge. I didn’t go in and instead peered through the window dreaming of how I would love to follow in the footsteps of one of my sporting heroes Eddie the Eagle. Who’ll ever forget his performance at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics? If you don’t know him look the great man up on You Tube. He had an absolute stinker but at least he had a crack. Of course, the coaches won’t allow us to have a ski which is totally understandable for fear of injury.

At this point I headed back to the hotel and watched a bit of European handball between traditional rivals Poland and Slovenia. Unfortunately there is no EPL available on the channels in our hotel rooms so I had to settle for European handball which wasn’t a bad thing because it had me drifting off to sleep before I knew it ahead of another big day of training tomorrow.

Cheers
Jasper