Sub-18 South Africa Tour 2013

View images, the tour video and film of the games, plus read the tour report here.

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Click here to view images from the tour: http://goo.gl/LTIjnT

Click here to view Robbie Deffence's tour video: http://goo.gl/cYQhWe

Click here to view the match v. Kasselvlei High School: http://goo.gl/KMNhNL

Click here to view the match v. Jan van Riebeeck High School: http://goo.gl/hYNdsQ

Tour Report by Simon Mount 

At the end of June 2013, following a season in which they worked tremendously hard to successfully rise to the challenge of life in the national A league, the Sub-18 squad embarked on an ambitious, exciting and thoroughly deserved tour of South Africa.

Our time in springbok country was split between Cape Town and Kwazulu-Natal and blessed with clear blue skies, a traditional warm welcome wherever we went and, needless to say, some fairly uncompromising opposition on the rugby pitch.

Cape Town, being one of the most spectacular cities in the world, provided us with several opportunities to marvel at the sights – perhaps the most dramatic being Table Mountain, one of the world’s newly designated Seven Wonders of Nature. The drive around the Cape peninsula and lunch at the extraordinary Two Oceans restaurant, was another highlight, although there was some disappointment that the threatened baboon raids on unsuspecting diners never materialised. There were, however, plenty of seals on display on our Hout Bay boat trip, and the penguin colony at Boulders Beach was also out in force. Lions and Wallabies locked in mortal combat provided more rich entertainment later on – this time from the safety of one of the many fine sports bar restaurants on the Waterfront in Table Bay.

With Nelson Mandela in a critical condition in hospital during our stay, there was an added poignancy to our visit to Robben Island, where our guide was a former political prisoner who had been incarcerated on the island with the great man during the long years of the struggle for freedom for the non-white population of South Africa.

Our opening tour match was against Kasselvlei High School, based in the northern suburbs of Cape Town and serving the largely mixed-race community known as the Cape Coloureds. During the apartheid era, sport in South Africa was also split along racial lines, with rugby almost exclusively white and soccer similarly black, although the Cape Coloureds were a notable exception to this rule and have a very long and proud rugby tradition, much of it in isolation.

Even though our match was scheduled for the first week of their holidays, hundreds of the school’s curious pupils turned up to watch their 1^st XV play their first ever game against a team from Portugal, and they created a joyous carnival atmosphere along the touchlines. Any notions that we may have had of an easy ride on the pitch began to evaporate, however, during the home team’s blood-curdling rendition of the haka, which had been taught to them by Kasselvlei’s most famous ex-alumnus, Bolla Conradie - the former springbok scrum-half who had faced the real thing against the All Blacks. Super quick, skilful, together and committed, our opponents gave us a lesson at the breakdown and cut us to shreds whenever they moved the ball out wide. Tomás Reid’s try was scant consolation as Kasselvlei racked up 50 points and sent their fans into delirium. After enjoying the excellent post-match hospitality there would be time to take stock prior to the even bigger physical challenge of the Afrikaners from Jan van Riebeeck High School looming large on the horizon.

Some rest and recuperation at our surprisingly luxurious accommodation in the lee of Table Mountain, plus a few more of the enormous cuts of meat that demanded our attention several times on a daily basis, enabled us to arrive in reasonable spirits at what could certainly lay claim to being one of the most scenic rugby pitches on the planet. Jan van Riebeeck is a top Afrikaans boarding school with a long history of prowess on the games fields and probably the last place on earth to go looking for sporting favours. This much we knew before kick-off and so there were no surprises when the hosts unleashed a series of strong-running attacks along route one in the opening exchanges. Although defending well, we were guilty of taking our eye off the ball and spilt too much of what little possession came our way to make much of an impression ourselves early on. Unfortunately for our victory prospects, the home referee was distinctly of the zealous partisan variety and was soon dominating proceedings and marching us repeatedly back 10 metres apparently for the fun of it. As our sense of injustice rose, so too did the collective will not to succumb and the resulting contest, though pretty brutal, patently unfair and ultimately a loss, was much closer than some of us had feared and at least served to bring the squad closer together than ever. 

As on previous Sub-18 tours to Argentina and Dublin, players were encouraged at all times of the night and day to remain alert for “grenade” calls, with the slowest to respond in the appropriate fashion subject to summary public press-ups, and also to avoid the various personal pratfalls that inevitably result in the presentation of the dreaded pink pyjamas as over-clothing for the unfortunate recipient’s day ahead. Sad to report, once again there were numerous candidates for the day-time nightwear, although the exact nature of their indiscretions remains covered by the old what-goes-on-tour-stays-on-tour clause and will not be appearing in this text.

The sun continued to shine and humidity levels rose as we moved around the coast to sub-tropical Durban. Here we discovered the delights of the Ushaka marine world, where we turned on the adrenalin taps by diving with sharks and heading down the crazy contours of the water slides, before moving on to the Moses Mabhida Stadium for some bunjee jumping and segway racing. The steaks in Durban were, if anything, bigger than those on offer in the Western Cape, but energy levels were definitely dipping as we approached our last game against a Durban Township XV.

Since the end of apartheid, much emphasis has been placed on breaking down racial barriers in sport in South Africa, which, in the case of rugby in Kwazulu-Natal, has involved bringing the game into the shanty towns (“townships”) that sprawl around the provincial capital. Our boys were very aware of the significance of their match against a team drawn from this still impoverished community, and raised themselves for their final game of the tour and, for many of their number, the Club. Despite lacking the physicality and rugby nous of our first two opponents, the Township players proved to be quick and very committed, although we were always in the driving seat and went on to secure that elusive tour victory relatively comfortably.

The final leg of the tour saw us travel upcountry to Bayala Game Lodge, where we enjoyed some traditional Zulu hospitality, an end of tour braai and an early morning game drive, on which we were treated to an up-close-and-personal encounter with a white rhinoceros, and where the baboons finally made their belated and impeccably behaved appearance.

The Sub-18 South Africa Tour 2013 was another hugely enjoyable and successful rugby tour undertaken by the Club and we are especially grateful to those who helped us raise the funds to enable us to subsidise the costs to parents of this tour by over 60%, as well as to offer two places in the tour squad to our team-mates from Galiza. Thanks are also due to the tour agent Sweet Chariot and to tour managers Damian Steele and Kathiramalai Sriparam.