Flight to Auckland

Kia Ora Red Roses whanau, which translates to hello Red Roses family. We’re at our final stop and to be honest, as incredible as it’s been, I can’t wait to go home and not have to pack my suitcase again for a while. As many of my past and present teammates will know, I am a serial over-packer and have not honed the art over many years of playing!  

We headed off from Dunedin to Auckland on Sunday morning, which was lovely as we had a whole day being tourists. We took full advantage of seeing sea lions, penguins and watching our Welsh club teammates take on the Black Ferns before settling in for the evening.  

I’m not sure who was on logistics, but we had to be pulled away from the television in our hotel as our leaving time was 8.10am – yes, the start of the World Cup final! Luckily for me, Amy was true to form and had enough data to get a very patchy game on the iPad on the way to the airport.  

The pilot played a blinder and didn’t push back on to the runway until the final whistle was blown. He 'mentioned' there was a technical fault but I think he was just a NZ fan. Amy’s trusted iPad was passed up to the furthest row forward and between Jess and Bridger – shoutout to the unsung heroes for holding it up – we managed to watch the game.  

Naturally, the plane was a little deflated when the final whistle blew but what a match for the neutral (from what we could make out anyway!) 

Scooter Cowboy's

It's in Dunedin that ‘the cowboys’ were born. Equipped with their own dance moves and songs but Auckland is where they were made. The group consists of about half the squad and the initiation is riding scooters around past 7.30 at night. I think that cut off is largely aimed at me as they wouldn’t include me until I ‘played out’ later!  

Kelsey Clifford (Wesley) is everyone’s favourite after scooting halfway up the hill before getting off and saying ‘I hate hills, I ain’t going up there” walking back down, pushing the scooter. As you can imagine the phrase has been said many times over since! On long tours, and especially seen as most of the squad were out here for the World Cup only one year ago. 

You have to find ways to make your own fun and ‘the cowboys’ have certainly done that.  

Speaking of fun, we’ve had a team challenge set by Mitch this week. He wanted us to create Red Roses songs and with my passion for music and DJing (that’s a joke in case you don’t know me that well) I lapped it up.  

Berner (Sarah Bern) and I re-wrote the lyrics to a fan favourite, which unfortunately isn’t PG enough to let you know the title of. Meg and I also had a night writing session to 'Freed from Desire.'  

Unfortunately for me, because I am the most competitive person ever, Rosie’s lyrics were actually so good to the man that it can’t be moved, and she probably won. All in all it was a great night and Charlie Hayter has changed the game when singing 'Freed from Desire' forever more, in a good way! 

Halloween in Auckland

Reminiscing now writing this, we’ve actually had a great week. Jess Breach and her fellow scare-masters, Claud and Moz did a Halloween fright night for us. I honestly cannot tell you how impressive it was – go and watch Ellie Kildunne’s video of the event on instagram; they put so much effort in and it was brilliant.

The girls did it last year and in truth it was probably one of Mckenna’s whacky ideas, which the girls loved, so it was big shoes to fill. Well, ladies and gentleman, they smashed it! They blacked out the room, made a maze from chairs, had bin bags hanging down from the ceiling and hung dummies on string. Sounds rubbish but please watch the video.