THE TOUR

one of the great joys of playing rugby or being a rugby supporter is the tour.

you get to go to exotic locations such as brisbane, new zealand, south africa or if your really lucky then you might even get to visit canberra.

this story centres on on such rugby trip a few years back to see the waratahs play the brumbies.

it started as four young kids sitting in the SFS one friday night talking about how there was only a couple more home games left and finished with the suggestion of a road trip to Bruce Stadium in Canberra for the game the following weekend.

it was decided what car to take, who was going, who was organising tickets, who was organising accomadation. Jesus being a single strapping lad at the time was given the job of making sure we left on time so we could get porn and fireworks before game time!

so saturday came and we jumped in a car and hit the most boring of freeways to the most boring of towns (sorry perth you cant win everything) the hours ticked by, as the boredom set in, the driver had insisted we could not drink in the car so instead we had to make conversation, without alcohol, gay references and man love are alot more gay than at the pub at 2am, but thats a blog for another time (or perhaps greenandgoldrugby) .

so we arrive in canberra and the young chap in charge of accomadation reveals he hasnt actually booked anywhere, not a problem, its Canberra, it wont be sold out. So we head to the Hostel and on the way i ask if we have to pick the tickets up or if we already had them, turns out we hadnt booked tickets. so we drive out to the stadium to try to get some, SOLD F'n OUT!!!! so no tickets and its already pushing 3pm, game time 7.30, what do you do?

FISHWIJK, or however you spell it, the firework and adult entertainment capital of Australia. so we load up, and head back to sydney, arriving at the local pub just before half time.

you see the rugby tour being the tradition it is doesnt always go smoothly. like a touring Australian team in Jo'burg the road isnt always smooth and clear. You need the group as a whole to come together and deliver on the day.

like a hangover on gameday after a big first night, the tour is met with danger and dizzyness, as you piece together what went wrong on the day, its easy in hiensite to just blame Matt Giteau without realising it was probably Nathan Sharpes fault to!

jesus out!