400ml of water fell from the skies above Brisbane in two days last week.

If that had been in Belfast, Derry or Dublin our game would have been called off if it was next Tuesday, never mind tomorrow. We were all looking forward to a couple of days of R&R on the Gold Coast but the rain rather got in the way of that!

We spent most of our time in coffee shops in and around the hotel area. Our round of golf was called off due to a water logged course and the families that arrived had to make do with a bit of catch up tv in the hotel rooms.

Nonetheless it was still a welcome break. It gave us a chance to re-charge the batteries after putting so much energy into the first game in Nelson.

After our two days off we were chomping to get going again and that was evident in our first session back. The system they have at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane is serious. It is something that Irish Cricket should aspire towards, even if it is on a considerably lesser scale.

I’m not talking about having 25m swimming pools or even the size of the indoor cricket centre but to have everything under one roof in terms of a gym, indoor school, office space and out door space. Malahide would obviously be the perfect location but a lot of things would need to happen in the background, not least money to be raised.

I know it is on Cricket Ireland’s wish list/agenda so hopefully it’s something we will see in the future. After our two days of training indoors it was great to get back outside in to the (very warm) sunshine! as good as the indoor facilities were it always better to train outside if you can.

The good thing about being indoors was that we had five lanes available to us so it allowed for really specific training. Everyone was able to get exactly what they wanted. The reason I say it was great to get back outside however is that its just much more realistic to the surfaces that we are going to be playing on over the next few weeks.

We saw the pith at the Gabba for the first time yesterday and it looks like a belting wicket, hopefully that will give us the perfect platform to perform our skills and to get our second win on the board.

The UAE played a pretty impressive game against Zimbabwe in their first match and they will certainly be no pushovers. We know their team pretty well by now and although they have a few new faces in their side we are confident in our plans for them. It is obviously a game that we targeted before the tournament as a must win and that hasn’t changed now.

It will be a great confidence boast for the rest of the tournament if we can leave Brisbane with 2 from 2 but before we even start thinking about the South Africa game we must play at our best tomorrow and beat a vastly improving Emirates side.

Most of our supporters arrived this morning or last night so no doubt they will be in full flow at the Gabba, One thing you can always be sure of is great support from our fans. I think because we are such small nation there is a real sense of togetherness between the supporters and the squad. I hope they feel the same anyway.

It was great to see so many familiar faces when a few of them came to the team hotel this afternoon. Past President Robin Walsh and his good lady Dorothy were on great form as always and no doubt they will be leading the troops tomorrow.

Hopefully we will give them a lot to shout about!