Rugby Tour of Canada 2008
Preparation for the Tour began in earnest with two days of intensive fitness work, team building and organisation, ably led and guided by the Rugby Captain, James Pool, and the Tour Captain, James Woodcock. Also in our ranks was Ed Lock, and between the three of them, they brought the team around them, leading from the front with outstanding fitness and skill with the ball. So we departed with high spirits from school, leaving behind a whole cacophony of mothers, daughters, fathers, brothers, wives, long lost aunts and Bodkin’s girlfriend tearily seeing us off.
"And oh, what a meal! Just imagine the look on all 21 of our faces when we ordered a large Pizza... We soon realised that our opposition were likely to be correspondingly large!"
We spent the night in a hotel close to Gatwick (many of us sharing beds!), before being up and ready to leave at 0730 after a hasty breakfast. Check-in ran very smoothly, apart from when I managed to send a box of Tour Ties straight through the system without a label! Mercifully, it made it to Calgary eight and a half hours later with the rest of our luggage – 72 bags of team kit, personal belongings, physio, balls and water bottles!
As with every tour, there is a little ‘monkey-business,’ and so, we played a few games ourselves. The first being that whoever says "mine" has to do ten push-ups. Within a few days, many of the team were well on their way through triple digits! However, the greatest challenge was to catch the staff out: Mr. Menheneott was the first to go, doing his ten in the aisle of the plane!
We arrived in Calgary and Coach Ridgway decreed that we would have a gentle leg-stretch. Well, we all knew exactly what this meant, so having already been awake for about 20 hours, it was 0000 GMT, we then lined up for an NJR special! Half an hour later, and in the pouring rain (sounds just like home), we all dragged ourselves back to the hall to get showered and changed, before making our way out to Boston Pizza for our first Canadian meal. And oh, what a meal! Just imagine the look on all 21 of our faces when we ordered a large Pizza; 14 inches of base, cheese and meat! Needless to say, most of us learnt our lesson, being beaten only halfway through our meals. Like their country, vehicles and houses, the meal portions are just as tremendous; quite frequently coming with a whole side plate of curly fries and another of salad, dressed with bacon bits, croutons and a thick, greasy dressing! We soon realised that our opposition were likely to be correspondingly large!
Match 1 Blundell's v Calgary Hornets
Two days later was our first match, versus the Calgary Hornets. Kick off was at 6pm, still in the blisteringly dry heat, but with a stiff breeze. At first glance, the Hornets seemed to have a series of "fairly solid chaps" in the pack, but the first few sets of play showed that size was definitely not everything! Our lighter, but fitter and technically more able, set of forwards proceeded to do some serious damage, stealing scrum ball against the head and dominating lineouts, rucks and mauls. This gave the backs ample opportunity to run with the ball and with the vast majority of the possession, the team worked smoothly to produce an impressive result of 68 – 0.
Tries: Pool 4, Lock 3, Hawkins 2, House, Hunt, Wheatley
Conversions: Loader 3, Woodcock
The result aside, there were certainly a few creases to iron out over the tour and in the coming season.
Post-match, we were split up into groups to go and stay with billets for the first time. Throughout the whole tour, the billets proved to be the highlight for most, as the Canadian people are so very generous and accommodating, and showed all of the players a great time!
Up early (groan) to catch the coach to Lethbridge, via the Royal Canadian Air Force Museum and "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump"! We saw the first wild animals on this journey, passing a large herd of Buffalo, maybe 2500 strong. James Woodcock’s account of Head-Smashed-In:
"A very enthusiastic tour guide with LM-style humour! One team squeeze and 21 Dead ants to go with the hundreds of buffalos that failed to realise they were heading towards the only cliff in the whole state!"
We arrived in the evening to the slightly surprising news that we would be camping at the club! However, with our fill of Pizza, we had a great evening… karaoke with some strapping lasses from the women’s team!
The next day we trained in the morning, before the heat reached its peak of about 30 degrees, and then headed for lunch. The afternoon was spent playing crazy golf and karting. We were then billeted for the night pre-match.
Match 2 Blundell's v Lethbridge
Watching much of the match from the blood-bin, I could see that this time, the opposing forwards were a bit more of a match in physicality, but our far superior fitness and the evening heat soon dragged them down. Tribute here must go to the backs for their confident and competent ball handling and finishing skills. From this match, we realised that we still needed to improve on retaining and securing quick ball from the breakdown. This aside, the final score was a huge 88 – 0!
Tries: Hunt 3, Woodcock 3, Hawkins 2, Newson 2, House,
Lock, Pettit, Pool
Conversions: Loader 9
Transfer to Regina took quite a while, even on the dead straight roads across pancake-flat plains! We all spent quite a while gazing open-mouthed through the window at the vast prairies. Sometimes the road would climb a slight incline, and if you looked down through the coach, you could see the two-lane road stretching for about 25 miles into the hazy distance, with hardly a vehicle in sight. What we did see however, were many huge grain trains crawling along the tracks past massive silos. Ed Lock counted the longest to be 126 carriages long, and it took about a 90 seconds to pass; about 1 ½ miles long!
Match 3 Blundell's v Regina District XV
Certainly the most challenging match to date. We had spent an hour in the morning working hard on disciplined rucking and defence, in expectation of a much stronger opposition, and this certainly paid off. A greater contest was just what we needed at this point, because it gave us the chance to play real rugby, and the elation at the end really brought the team even closer together.
Much of our match was spent on the offence, rapidly turning over every ball we could, and working hard to get around the pitch in groups. The Regina side, consisting mainly of two combined school teams, was much better drilled and worked well together, and once again, they had a far heavier and stronger pack, but an early try and penalty brought the score to 10 – 0 at half time.
This put them on the back foot, and with a comfortable lead, we still managed to steal 4 scrums against the head and a succession of lineouts in the second half. The backs worked their magic, although had to work harder against a more organised team. Two more tries and a conversion brought the final score to 22 – 0.
Tries: Pool 2, Denford
Conversions: Loader 2
Penalty: Loader
Unfortunately in this match, Will Yard, the team’s youngest player who had stepped up from the Junior Colts team last year to play First Team, was kicked in the face while at the bottom of a ruck, and suffered concussion and a small fracture to his cheekbone. This resulted in a black eye that Tyson would be proud of, but also ended his rugby for the tour. We were all sad, as he had made a great impact on the whole tour, not just with his fearless playing, but also his disregard for embarrassment and his ‘interesting’ sense of humour made him a great last-minute addition to the tour team.
That night, the Regina people were great hosts, and certainly were among the best billets of the tour.
The next day saw another transfer, this time to Saskatoon, one of the greatest cities of Saskatchewan Province.
Match 4 Blundell's v North Saskatchewan Rugby Union U19 Select
Once again, a pack of forwards with an extra 100Kg to wield! Not a bad team, but inexperienced. This was the first match that we conceded points in, but the gap still showed considerably between the two backlines. Our savvy forwards continued to steal and turnover scrums, lineouts and rucks, and run the opposition ragged from side to side, across the pitch. It should be noted that nearly everyone in Canada only starts playing Rugby when they are about fourteen or fifteen years old, and subsequently do not have quite the same depth of thought or innate ability that many of our players have developed in the ten or so years of playing. Such as was their skill, that most of their games were dominated by the forwards, and therefore made our defending relatively simplistic.
Final Score: 72 – 7
Tries: Lock 4, Woodcock 3, Pool 2, Denford, Goss, Hawkins
Conversions: Loader 6
Match 5 Blundell's v Lloydminster Reapers
This time we had two days between matches, but this did not put Coach Ridgway off the 400s, especially when there is a running track around the edge of the pitch! We played the Lloydminster Reapers in the heat of the day, although mercifully, it was not as hot as it had been!
We began the match a little half-heartedly if we are honest with ourselves, all being quite drained after playing four matches in seven days, and not mentally prepared. This, combined with the physicality of an opposition who really wanted to end our winning streak, came as quite a shock, and we ended the first half only 10 – 0 up.
Coach Ridgway, however, put paid to our lethargy at half time, and within 30 seconds, the forwards quickly took control of the game, and the backs then began to play with the game plan, passing the ball fleetingly from side to side. This quickly put paid to any chances they may have considered. We ran them down, forcing errors and them to resort to indiscipline, giving us nine points in penalties and another fourteen points in tries.
Final Score: 28 – 0
Tries: Hawkins 2, Pool
Conversions: Loader 2
Penalties: Loader 3
Unfortunately, we lost another two vital players in this match to injury; Ben Oddy suffered a concussion and Will Denford a fractured wrist. Both of these players made considerable impact throughout the tour; Will "Bad Boy" Denford for his impressive tackling and deft ball handling, and Ben Oddy for bringing his strength and experience to the front row. Both these players and Will Yard were back in the 1st XV for the first match of the school season.
We then travelled to Edmonton, one of Canada’s larger cities, for our last set of billets. Without exception, everyone had a great time here, spending much time in the West Edmonton Mall, the largest Mall in North America, costing $3bn to build. It was an amazing building, with an ice rink, a water park complete with wave machine, two cinema complexes, theme park, farm animals, sea lions and, of course, Abercrombie and Fitch! Seeing Mr. Ridgway’s face when we all boarded the bus laden down with American Eagle and Abercrombie bags will remain in all of our memories!
Match 6 Blundell's v the Nor’westers at the Ellerslie Rugby Park
We played the Nor’westers at the Ellerslie Rugby Park, an international ground which has recently hosted the majority of the women’s international matches. Kick off for our final match was at the later time of 7pm, and we soon had 3 points on the board. However, once again, mental preparation left a little to be desired, and much of the first half saw unimpressive phases of play, interchanged with a lack of commitment in contact.
The whole team raised their standards in the second half, once again using our superior skill and fitness to our best advantage, and soon scored many points, to come out with a fantastic 100% win record. Unfortunately, we conceded 10 "soft" points to them, bringing the total points conceded throughout the tour to just 17.
Final Score: 66 – 10
Tries:Woodcock 3, Loader, Lock, Newson, Pettit, Sandford,
Wheatley
Conversions: Loader 9
Penalty: Loader
That evening brought the end of the rugby side of the tour, leaving us still with five days of sightseeing and frivolity to go.
We transferred to Banff, having spent the night in a brand new hotel just outside the National Park! For many of us this was by far the best night’s sleep we had, especially in the knowledge that we were going to have a great time in the Rocky Mountains and Vancouver.
En route to Banff, we stopped briefly in Jasper to take in the local views, before heading on to a huge waterfall, with glorious mountains in the background. Just sitting gazing out of the windows of the coach at the absolute vastness of the whole region was breathtaking. It was on this day that the first black bear was spotted, and a little further on, two elk lying on the mudflats just a little way from the road.
However, the experience from which I certainly drew the most was visiting the Athabasca Glacier. It is one of the largest glaciers remaining in the world, being part of the vast Colombia Icefield – "the largest body of ice in the Rocky Mountains", covering nearly 150 square miles. We took a custom made ice tractor-cum-coach across the moraine and up across a specially carved route on the ice. About halfway up, the coach stopped and we were able to leave the bus and walk about a hundred metres and take photos on the ice (topless!). This was quite a chilly experience, but experiencing the barren openness that is a glacier, and feeling the harshness of the freezing wind is something that everyone should do in their lifetime.
Having spent the night in Banff, for our next trip, we went White Water Rafting, and then stopped off at Lake Louise. The rafting was another great activity, especially given the swollen river, log jams and the peril of splashing Mr. Brigden, right Pooly?
For our final transfer before returning home, we undertook the mission that is the ten hour ride across the Rockies to Vancouver on the Pacific Coast. Even Ian, our fantastic driver since Lethbridge, who seemed to be immortal given his encyclopaedic knowledge of all the things to do in Canada and superb driving, said that it was "a bit of a long haul"!
Once again, the scenery was amazing all of the way to the University of British Colombia, where we spent our final few nights. The landscape merged from huge vistas across gaping valleys with mountains, partly adorned with trees, towering up on either side, through to Spanish style hills with yellow, dusty sand and small gnarled bushes strewn across the terrain, and then down from the hills, abruptly joining a traffic jam in the suburbs of Vancouver!
While in Vancouver, we spent a while looking around, going to the Island, browsing yet more malls and shopping multiplexes. A great time was our final Tour Team lunch, which we ate heartily at The Old Spaghetti Factory. This really marked the end of our tour, which came as some disappointment to us all. But before we left, we had just two more things to attend.
We rose early (again) to catch our ‘Eco-friendly’ tour boat, in which we raced off at 28 knots from the mouth of the Hudson River and across the Straight of Georgia towards where a pod of killer whales had been spotted earlier that morning. Within a few moments, fins were spotted off to the side of our boat, and our guides identified them as a pod of rare transient killer whales. Apparently, these were the more aggressive species of killer whale, being far more efficient hunters in their rigorous pack techniques, and diving for up to three times longer than others, and far deeper. The large males are all recorded for scientific interest, and the leading male here was identified by its unique dorsal fin and grey saddle patch on its back as "T20". We shadowed these for about an hour as they hunted shoals of salmon, before heading back across the Straight to the harbour.
That evening, we were taken to bear witness to a baseball match. Baseball is an odd game, seeming to be cricket’s inferior little sibling, and it took some of us quite a while to get our heads round the technicalities. I believe that the British stereotype is huge hits out of the park and lots of running. In practice, this is not quite the case, with much of the time being taken up by the hilarious game of cat and mouse between the pitcher and runners trying to steal inches! It could be said that the game took quite a while to get going, but the end was quite a climax, with the underdogs, the Canadians just winning by one run in the final innings, beating an American side, Salem-Kaiser.
The whole tour passed so quickly and it seemed quite impossible that we were all heading home the next day – we were all really looking forward to the ten hour flight! As far as I know, we all wanted to stay on tour in Canada, even though we had at the back of our minds the nagging feeling of wanting to just get home and enjoy our own beds! Over the three weeks, no one had been really homesick, nobody fell out, and not a single person embarrassed the tour party or Blundell’s. Obviously, everyone had their ups and downs; being in a foreign country, 6000 miles from home and stuck with the same 20 other people for three weeks would sound to some like a great recipe for disaster! However, special mention must go to the ‘wives’: Mrs. Ridgway, Mrs. Brigden and Mrs. Menheneott, who all mothered us through our bumps and bruises with great compassion.
In the final hours, Coach Ridgway commented that we were one of the best tour parties that he had ever taken from Blundell’s. This paid tribute to his masterful coaching, the other staff and the ‘oldies’ James Woodcock, James Pool and Ed Lock for bringing us all around them in such an inclusive fashion, not just on the pitch, but also off. We all had the time of our lives, so thank you, Sir.
, Yr 12 (now Head Boy!)
