Sydney rain forces changes in Cal training schedule
12 hours of rain in Australia shakes up team’s agenda
SYDNEY (AP) — Heavy rainfall in Sydney over 12 hours into early Thursday morning forced changes to the practice schedules for California and Hawaii just two days away from their college football season-opener at the Olympic stadium.
Both teams were scheduled to hold open practice sessions at the stadium in western Sydney on Thursday, but falls of up 50 to 100 millimeters of rain (two to four inches) late Wednesday and overnight forced organizers to keep the players off the turf.
Hawaii was given a chance to practice at the University of New South Wales but because it was about an hour away toward the city and into busy traffic, decided to cancel their practice session and did a walk-through later in the day in preparation for Saturday’s game.
“We would have spent more time in traffic than at the practice,” Hawaii team spokesman Derek In ouchi said.
California held a light workout at the same ground Thursday ahead of Friday’s final training session for the game which organizers say is expected to attract a crowd of about 65,000.
“We worked through it,” Cal coach Sonny Dykes said after Wednesday’s rainy training session on the synthetic turf at the University of New South Wales field.
“We had a bit of rain, and bit of cold, not the best weather conditions.” Dykes added as the rain pelted down on a tin roof above him. “Anytime you travel 24 hours there are going to be some obstacles, but overall we’ve done a good job of adjusting.”
The weather forecast for Saturday is for a 50 percent chance of some light rain and a high temperature of 19 degrees Celsius (66 Fahrenheit).
The game is set to start at midday Saturday, which will be 10 p.m. Friday on the east coast of the U.S., 7 p.m. in California and 4 in the afternoon for the Hawaii home fans in the mid-Pacific. It was brought to Sydney in an attempt to increase support for so-called “gridiron” in Australia, a country which keenly follows the National Football League and has provided several players, mostly punters and kickers from Australian rules football, to NFL teams.