1st XV Japan Tour Diary Entry No 1

Day 1.

Arrived in Fukuoka after 22 hours of flying Auckland-Bangkok, Bangkok-Fukuoka. Watched 5 movies and slept a little. Some of the boys had a foot massage while we waited for 4 hours at Bangkok airport. Our venue for the tournament is 1 hour out of Fukuoka at a place called the Global Arena. All 20 teams stay, eat, train and play here. We have a Serbian
liason officer called Vlad, who helps us out a lot. We trained for 2 hours today and then had a team bath. Had our first dinner involving raw fish, soup, and of course rice. All the boys are trying to use chopsticks which is hard case. All very tired and boys happy to be asleep by 9.00pm.

Day 2

Great sleep.Up about 7am and breakfast. Soup, egg and of course rice. Trained again for about 2 hours. Good blowout. First starting team named this afternoon. Lunch and then singing and haka practice. Chauncey lead the haka well and our singing is improving. Trained again. I'm not in the starting team but all good. Hopefully I'll get on. Coaches had a dinner
tonight while we had a team meeting. Another early night and boys excited about first game tomorrow against a Japanese school, Kashiwa High School.

Day 3

Woke early this morning with Hayden Wisnewski's snoring. Mr Hotham and Mr Kirkham inspected our dorms at 8.00 am. We could do a bit better but Bruce Jones is so messy. Team meeting then breakfast. New jerseys handed out by
coaches for the first time with an explanation of its tradition and importance. 10.30 am all 20 teams line up in the stadium for the opening ceremony watched by a crowd of about 3000. We watched the Sth African school play the top Japanese school. Sth Africa too strong. 2.15pm warm up for our game. Boys a bit nervous but settle down after our haka. Pretty
impressive I must say. After a slow start we settled down and played some good rugby. Kirtis McNaughten is playing well at halfback  after getting the call when Kurt Davies became a late withdrawl with a boil. The backs ran in some good trys and we led 31-0 at haftime. I was wrapped to get on in the 2nd half. Fulltime score 57-0. Coaches still not happy though and
gave us a talking too. Great support from the 12 parents here. Great to hear their cow bells. Shower, dinner and team meeting. Looking forward to big game against French champions, Dax Landes tomorrow. Looking forward to bed. Hopefully not too much snoring tonight.

Regards

No. 16