By Pawlo
February 9 2007

I was fortunate enough to catch up with Charlie again very late last night and this time asked him to share with all the Quins supporters his typical “day in the office” while on 7’s duty. This is what he had to say (about Wednesday)…… “We got up for breakfast at 7.30am. I was rooming with Ben Russell from Saracens but he’s going home, so last night Dom Shabbo from London Irish arrived and I am in with him now. I know Dom, or Shabbs as he is known, from a couple of invitational sevens tournaments and we played England Sevens together in South Africa in December.

For breakfast I normally have some fruit to start and then scrambled eggs on toast. We have about an hour between breakfast and training but the time goes quickly. I get my stuff ready for training and maybe catch up on some emails.

We are training at the USA Olympics Centre which has amazing facilities. The pitch is a football pitch so it’s just like a carpet. Training for sevens is quite different to club training with Quins. The focus here is much more on skills and accuracy, I guess because there are fewer of you on the pitch so you have to have very good skill levels. At Quins there are more players involved so it’s a bit more about what you do as a team. We trained for over an hour yesterday before heading back to the hotel for some lunch.

For lunch I ate a ham and tomato sandwich with loads of salad. The food in the hotel is pretty good and there are always loads of different salads. After lunch we had another hour free so I went down to the player’s lounge and used the internet. I sent a few emails and caught up with friends and family back home.

Our afternoon session was at a local gym and we did some weights. It was up to us what we did and I like to do a bit of a power session.

Having got showered and changed back at the hotel we then had a function to attend; with all 16 teams at the city’s Museum of Sport. It was interesting to see a bit of local history and the Mayor was hosting us. Everyone involved seems really pleased that San Diego is the new host city, and talked a lot about the difference this tournament could make to getting kids to start playing rugby.

After dinner, which for me was grilled chicken and mashed potato with some vegetables, the rest of the evening was free. Sometimes we have team meetings with the coach or we are told to stay in and rest, but last night we were allowed to go to the shopping mall for an hour. Every player hit Abercrombie and Fitch like mad and bought a few t-shirts and jeans. The exchange rate it pretty good at the moment so everything is cheap. I also got some aviator sunglasses.

Then it was back to the hotel to bed and I watched an episode of Lost which was good. I got to sleep about 11pm and slept pretty well – except for Shabbs’ snoring which woke me up occasionally!”

Thursday, 5pm PST – Friday, 1am GMT