Hard work and help from John Wright

World Cups just sneak up on you! It does not seem that long ago that we were in South Africa in 2005 battling it out. I know every team is looking forward to the World Cup next year as this is what we play for, the challenge to be the best in the world. After a disappointing home series in February losing to both England and Australia, New Zealand are ready to move forward and are determined to prove that we can be world champions. We know that means we need to knuckle down to hard work, hard work and more hard work.

We had our first winter camp in preparation for the World Cup at the Queen's birthday weekend. It was great to see everyone again with the girls arriving fresh and raring to go. We spent time establishing a strong foundation for our journey to the World Cup and started by spending time remembering where we began our cricketing endeavours and why we play the game.

John Wright came and spoke to the squad to communicate that New Zealand Cricket are 100% behind us in our preparation and believes in our team immensely. He knows - and we know - we are yet to hit our straps and that is what is exciting about our team. We then had fitness testing which establishes our bench marks and assists our fitness trainer Greg Owen in designing our training programs.

We also enjoyed an excellent session with the men's batting coach – Mark O'Neill. He showed us video footage of some of the top Aussie and New Zealand men and how he had assisted them with their batting technique. Mark also gave us some basic tools to develop our own skills and the girls came away ready for action and to expand our game even more.

Kiwis love their sport, it is a known fact, and with the Super-14 final on that weekend the girls were very keen to take a closer look at Dan Carter's and Richie McCaw's 'sporting' talents. It was a shame we could not go see the match live since it was in Christchurch but with a team meeting in the evening we got to see the second half on television. It was better than nothing and still got to see a good rugby match. A good result too for Dan and Richie fans!

In amongst the skills, drills, fitness and analysis a positive feel was beginning to build amongst the girls with many laughs and good stories shared. We are all looking forward to the next nine months until the World Cup but lots to do before then.