The children were so excited to see a Welsh rugby player standing before them in their classroom and for the first ten minutes Rhys was inundated with requests for his autograph....even Mrs Jones got in on the act!
As part of our work on the topic "Champions", Mr. Walker spoke to the class about the fitness and nutrition regimes followed by the professional rugby players.
He talked about the importance of a healthy diet for top class sportsmen and women. We learned the Scarlets' rule for a healthy meal is....." a palm of protein, a fist of carbohydrate and a thumb of good fats". Rhys told us that one of his favourite meals is grilled chicken salad with avocado.
Mr Walker also told us about the importance of drinking plenty of fluid so that your body is hydrated. In fact, if any of the Scarlets players are not fully hydrated when they arrive at Parc y Scarlets, they are not allowed to train or play rugby! We then heard about the importance of looking after the bodies of the players, keeping them fit and injury free. Rhys told us about lots of the exercises he has to do every day and also about the exercises he needed to do to recuperate from his torn Achilles injury.
We heard from Rhys and Mr. Walker that a team of about 35 people work behind the scenes looking after the fitness and health of all of the players.
We all had a great morning listening to our special visitors and we learned a lot of interesting facts about professional sportsmen. We would all like to say a HUGE "thank you" to both Mr. Andrew Walker and Rhys Priestland for their time and for helping us with our topic.
We are all going to be cheering for Wales in the Six Nations and will be really excited if we see Rhys running out onto the field in the red of Wales. We were sorry to hear that Rhys is leaving Wales but we wish him success and happiness in his new club.
