We have received the following update from the Mayor of St Huberts (Mitchell Baird) and his adventures in the Brazilian National League.

His team, Pinheiros, is currently sitting in third place on the ladder behind Fluminense and Botafogo.  Bairdy has scored two goals, I am not sure how up to date the website is though.

“Greetings from Brasil,

After 21 hours of flying from Sydney to Auckland, Auckland to Santiago in Chile, Santiago to Sao Paulo Brasil my final destination. I arrived here Monday evening at 7pm local time which is 6am Tuesday in Sydney. After we arrived we went and dropped our things off at the hotel we are staying at and went straight to training. We met our teammates and we only had a light session as we were very tired and jetlagged.

In our team we have players of various ages the youngest being 15 who is one of our best players and also our captain who is 37 but is also one of our best players. We have two coaches the Brasilian national coach and also a Croation who is the Japanese mens coach who is tactical very smart.

The city of Sao Paulo is the 3rd largest in the world but unfortunately it is not near a beach or anything so during the day we pretty much relax and drink coffee which is fine by me. We train once a night for 3 hours which is pretty intense and normally do gym before the pool session as well. The club we are playing for is called Pinheiros one of the richest clubs in Sao Paulo and the club has teams in various different sports other than water polo.

The food is awesome over here, for all meals we eat at our hotel or club mainly comprising various meats.

Thus far we have played 4 games. One was a local comp game and four national league games. Our local game we won and of the 3 national league games we had 2 wins and a draw(should of won). The top 4 teams are quite good and then it drops off dramatically for example second last team we beat 16 to 3 Tijuca a team from Rio and we drew 7all with Fluminense the team coming 1st. Our team is one of the best as we have some decent shooters but the water polo here is alot different. It isnt that well structured and drilled as at home which makes it very difficult at times but other then that it is quite good. The refereeing is very different and Rhys and myself get the feeling they dont like foreigners lol but it is terribley inconsistent over here.

On my own game i have been playing quite well when i do get a pass in and not a shot flying over my melon lol. I have been scoring a few goals and drawing plenty of kickouts and 5m penalties which is good but at times the players dont know when to pass or shoot but hopefully this will improve.

We start the finals this week in Rio De Jinero with the Quarters this weeknd and the Semis and Grand the following weekend. The finals consist of 2 games which is strange and it goes on goal difference so if you lose the first game by 4 goal you must win the second game by 5 goals this is from Quarters through to the grand.

Highlights of our games and the competition table can be viewed via www.liganacionaldepoloaquatico.com.br and our club is Pinheiros.

Hope all is well with everyone back at home.

Ciao
Bairdy”