Its four days out from game day which means it is team announcement day and one of the busiest days in the build up to the match.
The morning will begin by catching up with the Warren and the coaching team to confirm selection. The all important selection meeting would have taken place the previous evening (Monday) but the coaches sleep on the decision before the final confirmation in the morning.
As a management team we sit down to discuss the key messages for the day before the final touches are put to the press release.
During breakfast Warren will sit down with WRU TV to film a short team announcement video, which will be turned around to go live at 11am when the announcement is made online.
Once the press release has sign off from squad management it is shared with the communications team to prepare all the channels for the announcement later in the morning. The website is prepped, the video edited, the social media graphics designed ready to go live across the multiple channels.Â
At 11am, the announcement is made on WRU.wales, across our Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as via press release to our media database.
The next 30minutes or so is spent reviewing the coverage and the immediate reaction to the announcement.
It is then time to finish preparations for the media conference, which will take place at the team hotel at 13.00pm.
On team announcement day up to nine players and two coaches will take part in a variety of media commitments. I will liaise with the rights holders to ensure their commitments are confirmed then finalise the cast-list for the press conference ahead of the squad returning to the team room.
Players are then briefed on their return as to what their role will be during the media slot.
I will then spend time again reviewing the coverage since the announcement in order to finalise the media briefing document which will be given and talked through to players and coaches ahead of their commitments.
Warren and Sam will kick things off with a top table media session. They will speak to a room of over 30 members of the media with part of the interview live and part embargoed for the next day.
Following top table, 5 players will speak to broadcasters and writers in pods over the next hour. As rights holders BBC will speak to Warren, Sam and additional players privately in order to fulfill their match coverage and match previews.
The media slot runs between 13.00 and 14.00 where on average 15 interviews will take place. It’s my role to ensure the players are briefed, are aware of current trends and topics and understand the key messages we want to get across. It’s also my role to ensure a fair spread of access and coverage across media platforms.
Once we conclude the media session we have vision access to the first ten minutes of training, so it’s down to pitchside to set up the vision positions and monitor that access.
Once that is complete its back to the team room for another round of media monitoring, reviewing the live interviews from the lunchtime hit.
It’s then time to check in with the emails, checking requests and clarifying queries.
