The new face of school rugby tours

We played on red dirt pitches in towns like Bothaville, Steynsrus and Viljoenskroon and we travelled by bus. Our accommodation was courtesy of our opponents.

A friend’s son is an eager rugby player. He loves the sport and wants nothing more than to turn it into a career. But he’s also realistic and knows the boundaries of his talents.

Now in Grade 12, his school’s first XV are embarking on a tour to Australia soon. It’s a fitting finale to a great amateur career.

But raising what is not small change for a group of 30 schoolboys to travel Down Under is quite a challenge. And with most parents committing to joining the excursion, we’re talking big money. This is a multimillion-rand mission.

It is quite the opposite of the tours I went on in my playing days.

Back in the ’70s, in my Standard 2 year, we were introduced to the oval ball.

Our coach, Mr Jooste, had all the eligible boys line up for an 80m sprint. The top two on the podium were the wingers. Me, the bronze medallist, was given the number 15 jersey.

Three down, 12 to go.

The remainder of the squad were lined up from tallest to shortest. The tallest two were the locks. The shortest two were designated scrumhalf and hooker, with the latter jersey allocated to the heaviest shorty. No prize for guessing what numbers the heaviest boys had on their backs.

How the rest of the puzzle was completed, I cannot remember. But three years later, when we reached Standard 5 and called ourselves the first team, we were not half bad.

And we went on tour. One small detail: The primary school I attended was situated right next to an orphanage. It was about a 50- 50 split between those from the “dorp” and those from the “orph”. Suffice to say our tours weren’t multimillion-rand excursions.

We played on red dirt pitches in towns like Bothaville, Steynsrus and Viljoenskroon and we travelled by bus. Our accommodation was courtesy of our opponents.

After each match – we played one every day from Monday to Friday – we went home with our direct opponents and their parents were tasked with feeding and accommodating us. But the next day we were back on the bus, off to the next godforsaken town.

I’m not surprised our parents didn’t commit to joining us.