Ask any Rugby fan or player, and they they will all tell you the same thing: New Zealand is the Rugby mecca of the world, and there is nothing like seeing the All Blacks play in Eden Park. Fiji and New Zealand are both first rate rugby countries. So where else would you expect us to go on our first overseas tour?

17 team members (and assorted rugby-playing siblings), together with coach Emile, headed out to Fiji after finals in June. After lots of rugby practice on the beach, we played the newly formed Women’s team of the University of the South Pacific, winning 30-29 in a close game with close to 300 spectators. We even made the Fiji newspapers (yeah clipps)!

From Fiji we headed out to Auckland, New Zealand, to meet up with 5 more members of the team. New Zealand has lots of sheep, and lots of good women ruggers too, and we got to learn a lot from them (the ruggers, not the sheep!). We played the Ponsomby RFC in Auckland, and the Te Teko RFC (4 women All Blacks!) in Te Teko (fondly known down under as “Texas”). Among the highlights of the tour was the opportunity to see two test matches: New Zealand Maori vs. England in Rotorua, and the New Zealand All Blacks vs. England in Eden Park.

There is no doubt that we all learned a lot about rugby on this tour, as well as having an awesome time and getting a chance to see the cultures of Fiji and New Zealand up close.

Ok, so this was just pulled out of thin air, and it doesn’t even come close to describing everything thatw e experienced on tour. hopefully in the next few months as people start filtering back to Stanford, we’ll get some pictures and some more commentary up here.

Yeah Tour!