Keats' final countdown

DAVID HALLETT/The Press

MEASURED APPROACH: Canterbury halfback Tyson Keats is careful not to "peak'' too early on game day.

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Canterbury halfback Tyson Keats tells Hamish Bidwell how he will while away the hours until kickoff in tomorrow's Air New Zealand Cup final.

"I stay tonight in the [Cotswold] hotel, beforehand, just to have a bed to myself and get a good night's sleep.

"Some players with kids, and others who want a good night's sleep, do as well, so we maybe have 10 of us stay in the hotel the night before.

"I have pasta there with tomato soup and steamed veggies, from room service. That's where my preparation starts.

"In the morning I get up about 8-8.30 and head home and have my shake. I was really bad at eating breakfast. I always used to skip it, so I find it easier to just put it in a blender and drink it in one glass. I have two Weetbix, two bananas, an egg, yoghurt and protein and just mix it up. Then I relax around the house on my own, before I go down to Merivale Mall to meet a couple of the guys and have some rice and do the sushi thing. I go home and visualise or watch through a few clips and then we drive down to AMI in our cars at three o'clock for our walkover, and from that moment I'm fully switched on.

"After that we drive back to the Cotswold and have a lunch or afternoon tea. It's usually mashed potato, spaghetti, chicken, sushi, bananas, yoghurt, creamy rice, sandwiches, whatever you fancy.

"I'm usually full up on my rice so I just have a bit of mashed potato and spaghetti and chicken and that gets me through, and I make sure I get my fluids up from 48 hours out and really flood my system. Then we'll get taped up and have a meeting before we hop on the bus and that's where Penz [coach Rob Penney] sits everyone down in a half-circle and he or Tabs [assistant coach Tabai Matson] will do their speech and tell us what they want out of tonight's game and get the hairs up on the back of the neck.

"We get on the bus after that and usually get to AMI an hour before kickoff. I generally don't wear headphones and it gets quite annoying on the bus when you've got guys listening to heavy metal or techno and you can hear it. [Prop] Pete Borlase has always got something thrashing his eardrums, which is probably why he misses half the calls I give him when we get out there.

"When you're in the shed [dressing room] there's another shed next door so some people put shoes on and start warming up in there. There's ladders and a net, spa pool, [stationary] bikes and all that carry on.

"Then it's outside for the warmup. The main thing for me during the day is to ease into it and not peak too early.

"Once we're in the huddle, before we run out, that's the last of the preparation done.

"We sign off there and it's all about putting the performance on the field."

- © Fairfax NZ News