In the term 2 holidays I went down to Auckland because I had a trial for the NZ Maori football team. I ended up staying down there for a week. They had a marae to sleep in, and a wharekai where we went every morning to have breakfast / lunch + dinner. The marae we stayed at was at East Tamaki College, Auckland. The boys that were new to the team got karanga into the marae including me and my friends and whanau. When we were inside the whare we had a big korero about what was going to happened in the week that we were going to stay down there. They told us that every morning your kids will wake up at around 7 to 7:30 every morning to have breakfast. By the time they are full, they will start to get ready for training at 9:00, and training will continue till 3:50 / have water breaks During the training Session. And stop for lunch. We ended up having 7 hours of training every day, on the last training we had a big game were we got split into 2 teams we played till 5:00 o'clock that day and all of us boyz were tired and Naked we Felt like we were going to Faint or Collapse on the field, when we were finished training at the end of our last training session. The coach and the manager surprised us with Chicken and beef roast it was the best feeling because after a hard training it was worth it we ended up singing songs and having a game of rap slap, In the morning at 7:30 we had breakfast and they had write our names it to team, A TEAM, B TEAM so they told us that the A TEAM was going to play the national cook island team today and the B TEAM was going to play them on friday, and the B TEAM could came and Watch us / support us as well. When we had finished having breakfast the A TEAM had to chill and Relax because their game was at 12:30, well the A TEAM was Relaxing and the B TEAM was training on the field. When it started to get closer to the time we started to put our Travelling kit on, and put our playing Strip underneath. We ended up chosen our numbers on our persians. When we got to the field where we were playing we took of our Travelling kit and put on our playing Strip and went to start warming up we ended up doing the fifa 11 warm up and some passing Drills when our legs were warmed up we had some shooting practice at our keepers to warm their arms up, after that we went into the changing rooms to have a team talk and the couches were telling us were we were going to play when we were Sorted without positions the couches had there Discuss off who was going to be captain of the team then the couches said “shakeal” and one off the keepers gave me a T shirt off when the first NZ maoris team and they said I have to give this T shirt to the other Captain and he will give me something In return so when me and the boys came out of the changing rooms there were heaps of people cheating our names when I went to do the Toss I saw my mum and dad + my uncle and friends parents in the Crowd cheering for me, when we had finished doing the Toss I went back in the huddle and I said boyz we have got this I have got your back boyz, and they were like I have got yours back captain. When I said brake we got into our haka lines and I started to lead the haka from the start to finish when we had finished doing our haka it was time to play this national cook island team. When we were 10 minutes in the game I saw that they were tall and Physical with there body so my dad said be on your toes / been ready + be strong on your feet when there was 5 minutes until the first half was done one off my friends scored but the lines men said it was of side and it wasn't but the reefer ended up saying no goal and 2 minutes after that the national cook island team got a goal in the last minutes of the first half, we went back in the changing rooms and had another team talk all the boyz heads were down they were angry with reefer Decision / call but when it was second half there was 1 minute left my same friend score another goal but he shot the ball and it reybourded off one of the another's players feet and went in our whole team was happy because we had came back with a 1-1 tied score to 2-1 and we won the game we were so happy there was another 50 seconds on the clock for Injury time and my team went into Defensive mode,There was 10 seconds on the clock One of the Opposition players dribbled through our whole defence and took a shot at our keeper.My friend ran back and jumped and he hit the ball out of the goal and I went out and then the reefer blew the whistle and said game over.We ended up having and after match which had ham sandwiches Doritos fruit salad luncheon chicken fire bread and other delicious healthy food.At the end of the day after we finished having a feed we said goodbye to the National Cook Island team because they head to fly back to Tonga on the plane, We went me and my mate went back to the whare and had snack of fruit and muesli barsAround 5 or 6 we had a game of hide and go seek tag around this big College that we're staying at where did I playing hide and go seek for at least 4 hours and we had dinner at 9, then I was the best because we had butter chicken naan bread and Curry it tasted so nice it was a good why to finish off our camp, the next morning we got up have breakfast at a later time around 8:30 and we had Weet-Bix and coco pops we ended up cleaning from till 9 and our parents picked us up around 10 when everyone's parents came. I said goodbye to all my friends and even gave my coach and my manager a hug and said goodbye, and then I had a marvelous trip back home.
Sincerely Shakeal Pickering
