NFL-Rams bet on body clocks in first test of Super Bowl ambitions in Australia

MELBOURNE, Sept 10 : The Los Angeles Rams are banking on their body clocks to cope with a 13,000-km journey to Melbourne, the first stop on a long road they hope will end with Super Bowl triumph in their backyard at SoFi Stadium.

The NFL's preseason favourites arrived in the Australian city early on Thursday, giving them just over a day to acclimatise before the 10:35 a.m. (0035 GMT) kickoff against the San Francisco 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.

While the 49ers arrived in Melbourne more than a week before game day to adjust to the time zone, the Rams have stuck to their usual "rhythm and routine" of training at home before their fly-in, fly-out business trip.

Part of the rationale is they hope to avoid the need to re-acclimatise to U.S. conditions when returning home for Week Two against the New York Giants.

The strategy has been debated by sleep experts and media pundits and the Rams road tested the long-haul trip to Melbourne with several players in separate trips earlier in the year.

The team collected and compared data from different approaches to travel and rest, but Friday's game is the first regular-season match-up in Australia and it is impossible to know how the journey will affect players in the heat of battle.

Mickey McConnell, coach of the men's college basketball team at California-based Saint Mary's, returned recently from a tour of Australia and found his players lacked energy on the court two days after landing in the country. 

“The first day is so long,” McConnell said. “If you don't get good sleep on the plane, you're just struggling to stay up on day one," he told NBC Sports.

“I think the time difference, flight, all that stuff, played a huge factor (in performance).”

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