Steve Thompson's Blog by Steve_Thompson

Hi everyone, I’m still at Pennyhill Park, but feeling totally different after two good victories against Australia and Samoa. The match against Australia was straight off the training pitch, everything we said we would do, we did!! Chris Ashton scored a great try, which came from great defence on our own line. After having a massive high like that match, it is always dangerous going into a game like the one we had against Samoa. But the week building up to the match everyone had a spring in their step and the banter is always good!!! But it’s good that a few players from Samoa play their rugby in England, just so some of the lads who haven’t played the national team know what they're capable of!! They are massive big-hitting rugby men. Not massively fit, but they have great skills and awesome explosive power. Their tackling has hurt a number of players around the world!!! If you look on YouTube, I'd say most of the biggest hits in rugby come from them!

Being in camp for 4 weeks does tend to give you a bit of cabin fever!! So as a group we went out go-karting. It was an awesome track and you could accomodate 25 cars at once. We arrived late afternoon, the sun was going down and there was a lot of moisture on the track. Now trying to fit my backside into the kart was a challenge all by itself I can tell you! We had 3 races of 10 minutes. The problem with karts is if you are a big lad like myself or Dan Cole (see below), you have no chance of winning because of our weight. So our race is all about how many people we can get off the track before we get warned!!!! Dan's first race didn’t end too well, as he ended up in the tyre wall with only 3 wheels!!It was a great laugh though.

At the weekend the match against Samoa didn’t quite hit the heights of the Australia game, but it was a totally different test. For me it’s giving the lads good experience going into the World Cup. This week we play South Africa who haven’t had the best of seasons and lost to Scotland last week. They will be like a wounded beast. They will be thinking that if they can beat us at Twickenham, it will be a big step forward. Playing South Africa is like playing a Samoa and Australian mix. They are very aggressive and hard men, but with great skills and a good backline. It should be quite an occasion before I return to Leeds next week.