Now on the campus of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, the Men’s Collegiate All Americans are in warmer weather and looking ahead to a match against Brothers on Wednesday.

The game will kick off at Crosby Park in Brisbane, QLD at 6pm local time, which is 4am Eastern Time and 1am Pacific Time. 

“We are aiming to win each game and we know the games will get tough as tour goes on,” said All American Head Coach Gavin Hickie. “We have to try to balance sufficient playing time for each player along with this so that is a challenge the coaches face.”

“We don’t want to stress too much,” added captain and Central Washington University loose forward Aladdin Schirmer. “We try to take one job at a time. But obviously with such a short turnaround we have to shift the focus pretty quickly.”

Schirmer said the changes in the lineup can be difficult to handle in the middle of a game, especially the open subs game against Darling Downs. But, that’s all part of being on a select side that is assembled from different parts of the country.

“What we try not to do too much is plateau,” said Schirmer. “We try to keep improving during the game. We haven’t had too much time together so when the boys switch in and out it takes us a second. We don’t want a lag when new players come in. We want it to be immediate. It’s very hard in these short tours when you bring four guys on at one time. You’re like, wait a minute, am I this lifter now? But, for the most part, we held onto it, and as soon as we got going, we really got going. 

“Like a snowball going downhill, we’re going to keep getting bigger and better as we get to the bottom.”