"Barnaby. Blag to see you made it." Jake smirked, clasping the guy over the shoulder as he passed him through the sprints. He eyed Lucas when he caught him walking towards the field and he stopped in front of the guy, skidding smoothly forward. "You're the new guy."

"Yes ... made it .. just about ..." Barnaby responded with a grin as he got his breath back and watched Jake pass. He then took note of what the others were doing and decided "well I guess I will just join right in ..." With that and being back in control he neatly fitted into the sprints with the enthusiasm of a boy who loved nothing more than pushing his body to the limits in anyway that was physically possible.

Zach notice the new people joined in with the practice. He keeps doing his training. He finished the sprints easily and went to jog around the field, determined to finish it so they could start a game early.

"Come on Al, you just don't want me beat you." he grinned and run even faster and passed Jake, Barnaby and Lucas while doing it.

"Last one has to clean the entire balls alone for a week!" he taunted and not letting them to protest as he speed up the pace.

"You sure about that, Chase?" Jake picked up his pace and was heel to heel with Zachary. He wasn't really getting into the print, but he loved tagging around when he was in a bored mood and he kicked Barnaby on the shins in the next turn as a signal that he should finish his sprints along with the other Freshman.

"Boys if you can't play nice, you cant play together" Barnaby teased as he quickly caught up Zachary and Jake - no way was he getting left behind. He had a competitive nature and the very idea of anyone doing anything better than him was not entirely tolerable. Okay it was completely un-acceptable.

Lucas shook his head amused at them and took off in a sprint.

"Oh I'm so gonna beat you Zachy boy." He grinned sprinting even faster and nearly tripping on a stick.

Jake rolled his eyes at the whole lot of them and he quickly swerved to the side of Zach, managing to beat Lucas by a hairline before digging his heels onto the ground and calling for a stop, panting slightly but he breathed in as normally as ever except beads of sweat was dripping down from his hair to his shirt.

"Drills, a break, more drills and a game." He said over his shoulder.

"Why don't we skip all the other crap and do a game now instead?" Alex suggested.

"Skip that crap and you'll end up being crap yourself, Williams." Jake said in a low voice and turned to the younger boy with a frown. He was used to this and he simply shrugged. "It's the drill that make you better at playing anyway. You gain experience in games, but experience doesn't count when the only experience you'll ever get is getting a sprain or doing something stupid."

"Thats why we made bandages." He said sarcastically. Knowing he would get in trouble if Jake heard the cheeky voice he did it in.

"And that's the exact tone that got guys like us, to invent punishments." Jake said in a calm but devoid of any mercy sort of voice. "Drop and give me twenty. It's that or you stay in the benches during the game."

"Fine." He mumbled. Dropping onto the ground and starting his push ups.

"15, 14, 13...." Jake was counting down, kicking a ball from one knee to the other as he kept an eye on Alex. The rest of the team was already doing the drills and he waited for Alex to finish. "9, 8, 7..."

"I don't think any amount of drills will stop him doing something stupid" Barnaby commented as he glanced at Alex, without stopping doing his drill. He hated following orders - maybe why he had got to co-captain as fast as possible - but football was different, it was a team game and teams followed orders. Then again he hated team sports, and football was the exception to that to.

Alex snarled at Barnaby. "Shut up." He said.

"I don't think he's stupid. Just hard headed." Jake said just as Barnaby passed him. He really didn't like ordering people around. In fact, he didn't want to be team captain in the first place. But terms came to terms and somehow, he found himself in that exact position and he could feel the coach's eyes behind his back even though he knew the coach was in some hospital with his wife.

"I never said he was stupid. But he just so excellent proved, he is really good at doing stupid things" Barnaby replied with a frown before he added in a rather grumpy tone to Alex "don't tell me to shut up!"

"Both of you drop it." He patted Alex on the shoulder when he finished and started on the drills. He expected the rookie to follow and he dodged through the orange cones, while looking over his shoulder to see if he was doing anything. He turned to Barnaby who was a few feet away from him.

"Did you hear about coach?" He was talking about the coach turning into a father.

"I was hoping to get an update, I headed down to the office with the intention of asking ... but I got distracted. Stuff happened and I had to the medi-bay instead. So yeah don't know if anything new has happened" Barnaby replied as he considered it, and replied as tactfully as he could without mention exactly what had got him distracted "guess after practise will go ask ..."

"Yeah and the sun won't rise tomorrow." Jake put in with a smirk when he finished his round, stopping for breather before going out again passing the ball to Barnaby without hitting the cone and alternately touching the ground and shifting his weight to balance his form. "What distracted you, exactly?" He asked. "You're usually straight minded."

"I had a little debate with the cheerleaders queen bee" Barnaby finally replied after he took a moment to phrase his reply and complete the part of the exercise, and send the ball back to Jake "and then apparently the trash talk during the little football vs cheer-leading competition got a little out of hand. Charles asked me to apologize, I did not want to ... and so he decided to hit me ... and then that got a little out of hand too. But hey it was my right to refuse to apologize, just because there girls and look good in short skirts does not make them always right!"

"It's a wonder you haven't been slapped at yet with that attitude of yours." Jake joked as he passed the ball back. They were at the end of the snake exercise and Jake pushed himself forward for the next hit. "But you're right. The cheerleaders can be a little annoying." He thought about some preps that he's met. They didn't really part off as good friends.

"Well that is because they know no matter how I act - it would be too criminal to risk looks like these" Barnaby innocently replied before adding in a much quieter tone "Besides I think them winning the football game was good enough pay-back for them ... stupid girls."

"They played a good match though." Alex said. Dodging cones.