One of the major components of a foreign trip is dealing with the considerable jet lag.
“When you go to that side of the world, it is tougher to adapt,” explains Legun. “You need one day per time zone crossed, so seven days. But we’ve done a good job before, so hopefully now within three or four days we will be alright.
“To facilitate this, what we’ve been doing is to give the players the opportunity to sleep. What happens when you travel is that you’re going to wake up during the night. When it’s midnight here, it’s 1pm at home. Try to sleep at 1pm – it’s pretty tough, isn’t it?”
One solution, although it may seem unlikely, is enforced napping.
“You have an optimal window to nap which is past lunch,” he says. “Post-lunch, between one and three o’clock, for between 20 to 90 minutes is the time to have a good nap.
“If you sleep later, though, it might affect your subsequent night of sleep. It can be a good tool, but it has to be timed perfectly.”
Part of Eglon’s preparations was to subtly introduce the change in time zone long before departure.