New physio to SPACE has touch to match ambitions of him & clinic

Introducing SPACE's newest recruit: physio Jon Twynham! 


We are thrilled to be able to have recruited him from Aberdeen to join us at 'Inner' SPACE Central at Dalry Road.


He has been well known to us for a few years as he has been a partof the support team to the Spaceclinics.com sponsored Scotland Touch team from  Bristol at the last European Championships through the Touch World Cup in Edinburgh to the next Europeans in September in Italy.

Well qualified for the role of staff physio at SPACE, 'JT' has great experience at a spotts' injury clinic in Aberdeen as well as being physio to the Scotland Womens' rugby 7s and XVs teams currently.


Enjoy his presence from today, June 20th, as JT will be joining Stephen in the Olympic Village as polyclinic physio from the end of July!
We hope you will agree he will add great value to the SPACE team as our 6th physiotherapist on site, available on Mondays, Wednesdays & Thursdays.


He is certainly looking forward to being a part of the team building on our reputation for quality acquisitions & added value in specialist areas from rowing to rugby, touch football to tae kwon do!

Pacific Tour continues to Samoa

Sport opens many doors: employment; honours; trophies; dinners+meetings. It also occasionally delivers on trips to venues where you may rarely consider visiting outwith an organised tour-such are the risks or hassles: we can think back to visits to Tblisi perhaps, or Dubai/ India+Pakistan when armed bodyguards are requirements for sporting bouts.


This rugby tour to the Pacific Islands by Scotland has really delivered on the cultural & unexpected fronts: even regarding the weather.
After last week's intermittent rains & sunshine the party arrived in Samoa in the early hours of Sunday morning to warm & glorious sunshine.


Early morning runs by the management has seen them report significant sweating even at 7am so we can expect afternoon temperatures to be plus 30 degrees centigrade. Another challenge to the squad whilst training this week then!
Samoa is a group of ten islands roughly halfway between Hawaii & New Zealand with a strongly Polynesian demographic. Whilst the culture of Christianity pervades many aspects of the way of life, sundays here are quiet with churches thronged with people singing in local languages.


One of the Pacific's most famous hotels, "Aggie Grey's" is in the capital, Apia, the largest urban centre with a population 37000 (out of a total if 140000). This colonial building is a remarkable affair with rooms based on traditional 'fales' appearing to be rising out of the jungle with different levels of building giving the feel of a wonderfully rambling construction designed for the tropics. It was very popular with the Hollywood set of the 1950s with visitors like Gary Cooper, Marlon Brandon, William Holden & Cheryll Ladd. 


The original owner whose name adorns the hotel had the hotel built as an international hotel in 1900, and famously used to dance the final dance personally at the legendary fiafia evenings from her days of running the 'British Bar' in the 1930s - these are still held weekly and the tradition has evidently been continued on by the current owner, Aggie Grey's granddaughter.


So the well-kent Scottish links to Samoa of Robert-Louis Stevenson/ Tusitala have generated genuine warmth for Scots here in the cradle of the South Pacific.(SPACE blog on Samoa DEC 2011).


The hospitality shown us so far would certainly suggest an affinity between the peoples.

Rugby Tour: training, raining & the Flying Fijians!

What an excellent week for the Scotland rugby team of training,culture and tropical storms ultimately culminating in a rousing 37-25 victory over the 'Flying Fijians' in which the much vaunted home side were outscored 4 tries to 3.


Having endured 3 days of torrential rains a match played under blue cloudless skies in almost 30 degrees tested the players' fitness, strength+endurance as well as the management in establishing cool dressing-room facilities & a keen pitchside cooling+drying strategy involving iced towels,dry towels+regular fluid replenishment.

International School, Nadi where Scotland trained

The match ended in scenes of glorious sportsmanship on the field with shirt swapping & the entire playing group gathering in a circle to give thanks & praise one another. It was refreshing to witness+the entire atmosphere was convivial & at no stage hostile despite the home fans enthusiastically willing their team to succeed.


The entire Fijian week was humbling & joyfull: the pleasures expressed by the local villagers at Nawaka-so recently distraught by floods- on our squad visit; the appreciation of rugby strips donated to teams to kit out two full teams; the bouyant atmosphere leading up to this Test Match (first by a Tier One rugby nation since 2006 when Italy visited) & finally the overwhelming warmth after the match shown to the players of both teams: these are memories that will live long in this squad's minds.


Yet the support for sport in these islands is weak: modern facilities for training, strengthening & conditioning largely absent in the west of Fiji as far as we witnessed. More support for the natural flair & excitement for the game here is needed: we saw plenty of rugby being played in the villages on fields, & empty spaces as well as pitches. The lack of incoming tours by the leading nations quite appalling-why no visits & tests by England,Ireland,France,South Africa & perhaps most pertinently of all Australia & New Zealand?

Fiji: From flooded villages to the Burning West

SO the Scotland rugby tour has rolled into Fiji and Lautoka.
Hunter Stadium, Newcastle (NSW) seems a long time ago-AND the rains have followed us into the Pacific Islands.


Players have been commenting on perspective from natural disasters, and how they struggle to come to terms with the housing and the flooding here, particularly after a visit to the village of Nawaka with a population of 1800, which sustained severe flood damage (Scots visit Nawaka Village) earlier in the year when only five houses and the church survived intact.
It makes the struggle for internet access a little less overwhelming.


This stadium is sensational. The name evocative: Churchill Park. The region known as Fiji's "Burning West".
The view seen here from the hill behind the posts is from the shade of a large tree.

Cracking way to watch how the defence unfolds and teams are creating space for attacks.


The crowds will be noisy and excited to see a Tier One rugby nation: they have only had two visits by Italian teams since Scotland were last here in Fiji, and the Scots were heavily defeated back in 1998.


All information relating to Scottish Rugby's media coverage can be found on www.scotlandrugbyteam.org.

How the Aussie Press saw it...

The critical thing for squad and media alike appears to be whether Scotland can capitalise on the momentum of the excellent victory over Australia in the lashing rains of Newcastle.

(see John Beattie's blog here BBC Blog) With team members returning to take their places after injury or illness there is a real sense of anticipation about this Scottish rugby team.


This South Pacific is a enjoyable tour clearly made more so for the presence of winning matches. Tries will also be a welcome addition, but the respect shown to all members of the playing and management squad has been magnificent even though we have had a trimmed down management team (unlike in Aussie Rules where we learned that for an away fixture 22 players may travel but 32 management!).

Rain falls as Scots tour Nawaka

Nawaka Villagers entertainment

Yet the messages of visiting a place like Nawaka and seeing the joy of the locals entertaining us with dance and song will live on for the tour party.




Anyhow it is almost matchday, the tape has been precut, the massage is complete, and key messages have festooned the sanctity of the Team Room.


As with so much in Fiji we will be left with memories of an experience that everyone concerned will remember. Rain or shine.

Sugar craving is an evolutionary desirable made unnecessary in the Space Age

Prehistoric man developed the 'Sweet tooth'. This craving for basic sugar was fundamentally an adaptation to a once limited food source of rapid energy: an original fast food.


Sugar overload is actually toxic to our bodies. 
Our ancestors subsequently developed a way to manage that by the conversion of excessive sugar to fat.


The modern problem is that a once scarce food source is abundant in eye-popping quantities, and once succumbing to the inherent desires for sugars then the obesity 'epidemic' can be readily viewed as an inevitable outcome to agriculture & availability.

Dan Lieberman is an Evolutionary Biology Professor at Harvard, & comments on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent ban on supersized sodas & sweet drinks of 16 ounces or more.

Whilst detailing our ancestoral drive for the sweet stuff for dietary sustenance, Lieberman also establishes that the New York situation could be one repeated for a number of foodstuffs if taken in excessive quantities such as fried foods or pizzas.

Key to his reasoned article in the New York Times (NY Times article in full) is the fact that children cannot be expected to make good choices & require guiding similar to the assistance offered to them regarding cigarettes and alcohol. 

Rather than just setting himself up to be targeted by an aggrieved overweight adult population, the trick for Bloomberg and wider society may be to get the educative message across to the children,and head off the next generation careering towards this obesity epidemic before it is a case of being too little too late.

Evolutionists might suggest our ancestors admire the caring actions to the wider society: similar to what hunter-gatherers achieved millenia ago in a time before Super Big Gulp.

Sydney not swanning about in terms of AFL facilities

Opportunities to view facilities come when on tour & this week's stay in Manly has allowed us a view of Sydney Football Stadium(SFS) inside and out.


The Sydney Swans would not suggest that they are the wealthiest of clubs in the Australian Football League (AFL) but they lay claim to investing in their player base.


Amongst their players is one Mike Pyke whom played with several of the Scottish rugby team at Edinburgh. He gave Stephen Mutch from physio & Duncan Hodge (kicking & catching skills coach) a tour of the Facilities at their training and playing base at the SFS.


Whilst the gym is more basic than some of the venues visited in the USA, we were impressed with the area by the pitch entrance for balance & co-ordination daily training, plus a large arena for hand-eye ball workouts and a recovery area that whilst simple it looked very fit for purpose.

Additionally a section for spin bikes & watt bikes sits to the side, & a half time room for players to sit & watch action from the first half with the coaches following showers or changes of kit: facilitated by the 20 minutes permitted by the rules.


It all adds up to a pretty impressive package for athletes noted for their huge workrate and distance covered in matches.