The junior and senior rugby teams are in the last stages of preparation for their upcoming three-week tour of Australia. Since 1999, Collingwood has taken a squad 'Down Under' every second year. In those nine tour years, the team has come back and won five BC AA gold medals, one silver and two bronze. The correlation between touring and winning provincial championships is clearly very strong.
Collingwood will play five games on tour. The team flies into Sydney and plays Central Coast Grammar and St. Augustine's while in New South Wales. The squad then moves up to Queensland, where they play Matthew Flinders Anglican College on the Sunshine Coast and Somerset College and All Saints Anglican School on the Gold Coast.
There will be 43 boys travelling this year. Eight players will be on their second tour, but for the majority of the boys this will be their first taste of international rugby. It will be a chance for them to visit a country that takes great pride in their rugby history. The Wallabies are currently ranked #3 in the world, but if you asked an Australian rugby fan what they thought of this, you would undoubtedly be told it is not nearly good enough.
Of course, there will be much more to this tour than just rugby. The boys will have five homestays, which will give them a real taste of life in Australia. There will also be lots of time for fun. There are numerous beach trips planned along with the usual visits to both the amazing Gold Coast Wet n' Wild World and the 'Big Kart' Go-Kart Track. This track has been the scene of many an epic race between teachers and students. Perhaps this will be the year that a student actually wins the 'Top Driver' award.
