Hey Coach - there's a Zebra on the field!

2024 Colts tour of South Africa

Day 1

 

Arriving at 6:30am (NB – Sam Bacon was last to arrive at 6:35am) at Sydney International Airport 22 keen travellers and 2 nervous adults were getting ready for a 15 day tour to South Africa. With the writer of this blog not being the best flyer it was going to be an interesting 15 hour flight ahead. Like preparing for a rugby match each player took different approaches to how they were preparing for this flight. Some needed a beverage or two to settle the nerves whilst others were stocking up on books to keep the brain active. The MVP of the flight (or could arguably be the worst on the flight) was Alex Metaxoulis.

Arriving in Johannesburg after 15 hours we were ready to get to our hotel. Getting through customs was a timely process but before you know it we arrived at our hotel before rushing down to Spur (think Ribs N Rumps) for our first dinner. It proved to be a good experience as we even had the local waitresses sing a song for George Clift who was celebrating his 20th birthday.

Day 2

Surprisingly most players woke up early and numerous times throughout the night (shout-out to Pharrell Leatulagi, Sami Moala, Jett Peters & Reilly Canning for beating jetlag and sleeping through breakfast) we were off on our bus trip to Dragons Peak Resort. A 5 hour bus trip broken up with lunch at another South African staple – being Wimpy burger store. It was also made entertaining being able to tune into the Roosters vs Storm game throughout the trip.

Once arrived at Dragons Peak Resort we were quick to set off for a quick training session to get the rust out of the system. On the way to the training session it was a rather picturesque scene walking to the ‘field’ as a local zebra amongst other wildlife strolled on in the background. Highlights of the training session was definitely a few players falling into the ‘natural landmines’ left by the local wildlife. To avoid embarrassment I won’t name them – we will just call them Ryan M and Sam B.

That evening we had our first ‘punishments’ in Kangaroo Court which were awarded to Sam Bacon & George Clift. Their punishment was that they had to wear Argentinian kit to the local rugby club whilst the Springboks play Argentina.

Day 3

If we didn’t know we were in South Africa we definitely did after our third morning. Getting woken up to the sounds of local wildlife and seeing the local baboons rummaging through bins is something we are definitely not accustomed too in Australia.

After breakfast we drove into Winterton for our fixture against Draks Rugby Club. It really is an eye-opening experience seeing the contrasting areas of wealth on the local golf course whilst you see the hardship faced by many on the sides of the road and driving through town.

Once we arrived at Winterton Rugby Club we were the first ones up and with the temperature hitting 29-30 degrees it was going to be a big test. Our boys opened up with some excellent rugby running in 3 early tries to take a 17-0 lead. Draks hit back with a try of their own to bring it back to 17-7 but we finished the half strong to score another try to take the half-time score to 24-7. The message was to continue to win the effort areas and speed up the game when we could and we did this scoring the next two tries  to take it to 36-7. At this point the home side lifted and they scored consecutive tries to bring it back to 36-17. This woke our boys up as we ran in the last two tries to bring the final score to 48-17. Overall a positive first up game with our next two fixtures expected to be significantly harder.

Following the fixture we were welcomed to a post match beer in the changerooms (good to see some traditions are constant throughout the world) and then invited to a combined Kangaroo Court where fines were given out to both sides and ultimately led to them awarding their best forward to Sam Pickard and best back to Alex Metaxoulis. At this point the Springboks were about to kick off and everyone moved their chairs inside to watch them secure The Rugby Championship as our boys got to experience the local hospitality with crackling pork and pig on the spit on the menu for dinner which was washed down with brandy & coke.

See the photos here