12 December 2006

In mid-October, Captain Logan Vaughan received a phone call forcing him to make a rapid decision: fly to Australia for an Army course, or fly to Argentina for a 17-day rugby tour with the New Zealand Heartland XV (formerly the Divisional XV).

What’s that, “Don’t give up your day job”? Right. The day after playing in the NPC final for Wanganui, CAPT Vaughan took a temporary break from his role as Senior Instructor Dismounted Ops at Combat School, Waiouru, and travelled up to Auckland to begin training for the tour.
 
Logan’s story:
Most of our training concentrated on a game plan that moved the ball away from the opposition forward pack and we didn’t do much on defence. This was made clear when we played the All Blacks on the Friday that we were to depart.

The pace of the game was fast and furious. Both sides refused to kick it, and it wasn’t long until the superior fitness of the ABs began to tell and they started running in plenty of tries. Even so, it was an awesome experience to see first hand how good they really are. After the game we had lunch with them, and then boarded the plane for our flight to Argentina.

Our first stop was Salta, in the northwest of Argentina. Salta has a population of 600,000 and is renowned for its Spanish colonial architecture.

The rugby was a tough ask though. On our second night, at a barbeque at the local rugby union headquarters, most of the team contracted a stomach virus producing chronic diarrhoea and vomiting. For some of the team, this would last the length of the tour.

As it was, we all struggled to go the full 80 minutes in the first game. I started at centre and was ready to go after performing our first haka of the tour to a stadium of 18,000 people. However, the start was delayed by the locals, who held a 10-minute mini prize giving on pitch! Getting tips off the Welsh, I suppose?

We were then given a lesson in playing to the whistle and, with the referee giving no engage call in the scrums and allowing a free for all at the breakdowns, we were getting destroyed in those areas. We were down 22-12 at the break, with the Salta forwards scoring three tries. More urgency was shown in the rush to the toilets at halftime than had been shown on the pitch.

For the second 40 we adopted to the “new rules” and we managed to sneak another try in and win the game 23-22. All our tries were scored from 60 metres-plus out and were all scored by the backs with me lucky enough to get two! I have never been so exhausted after a game of rugby but we did well to finish stronger than the locals, especially at an altitude of 1,200m and against a team that fielded 26 players in total.

The next day it was a journey south to Tucaman. Tucaman is larger than Salta, with a population of over 1 million. But in contrast to Salta, where the streets were clean and the locals friendly, Tucaman was dirty, with rubbish and stray dogs everywhere.

Tucaman is the second best rugby province in Argentina, with some ex-Pumas and Argentina “A” players in their ranks. With only four days to recover and prepare before the game, we were straight into twice-daily training.

Down only 13-6 at halftime we were looking fairly good, but, in the second half the 32-degree heat took its toll and the team ran out of puff. Several penalties led to two quick tries being scored, effectively putting us out of the match. We did run in a try from behind our own line, which got huge cheers from the crowd, but we finally went down 35-13.

We arrived in Rosario after a two-hour flight and had to endure another four-hour bus trip with the inevitable barbeque lunch (do they eat anything else?). Having now learnt our lesson, we knew what food to avoid and most of the team came through the meal unscathed.

We trained in the morning and late afternoon due to the heat, which meant that we were usually up early, not easy given that the functions we attended didn’t start until around 10pm, with dinner served after 11pm. The management gave the tired team a day off and we explored the city. Rosario is a river city of 1.5 million people and has really good shops, with similar prices to New Zealand; however, our dollar is much stronger (about 2-1) – the Army Women’s rugby team would have had a field day!

I was named to start at centre for the “test” match versus Argentina “A”. While I was immensely happy and proud to be there I was under no illusions about how hard the game was going to be. Some players were still suffering from mysterious assorted sicknesses, and some even had to be given intravenous drips on the day of the test.

For the first half we were very competitive but Argentina “A” scored two quick tries and before halftime we were down 21-5. The anticipated “neutral” ref didn’t materialise, much to our disgust. Never again will I moan about Paul Honis, the local ref was a phenomenon!

He gave the opposition a try after a maul broke up and half of it crashed 10m and over the line after searching for and supposedly finding the ball at the bottom of the maul and vigorously blew his whistle and pointed at something. We had turned it over further up the field and were off with a 6 on 2 overlap. The result? A 5m scrum to Argentina amidst jeering crowds and many colourful words from us. A pity he couldn’t understand them!

When he awarded a try that the touch judge had said wasn’t a try, I knew we were going to struggle – and we did. We had several line breaks but were always called back for something or other.

However, the Argentinean team was very good, with big forwards and fast backs. They scored some excellent, fair tries. The final score was 39-5.

The next day we departed for Buenos Aires and went to a soccer game featuring Diego Maradonna’s team Boca Juniors. There were 80,000 people all jumping up and down which was somewhat unsettling, as the stadium was shaking! Then it was time to return to Waiouru – and the “day job”.

The tour was a wonderful experience where I not only learned a bit more about rugby but also a new culture. The NZRU were great and treated us very well. The team were all good mates in no time. The usual fascination with the Army had me fielding lots of questions about joining requirements, what we actually do etc. I gave them my well-rehearsed recruiting lines – so man those phones SRR!

Highlights

• Being treated like All Blacks was awesome at first with hundreds watching us train and wanting autographs and photos;
• Being presented with the playing jersey by people such as Earl Kirton, Colin Meads and Ross Cooper was very special – pulling it on was better still!
• Performing the haka and scoring in the black jersey;
• Receiving faxes from the ABs prior to our games wishing us luck;
• Winning my first-ever game of Texas hold ‘em poker and 120 pesos!
• Not having to cook, clean or do my own washing for three weeks!
• Getting more Adidas kit than I could ever use – hands off Andre Renata!
• The steak meals for the first few days: very tasty and big!

Lowlights

• Losing!
• Refs;
• Losing 6kg on tour and still getting cramps a week after returning home
• The steak meals for the last 10 days!

I would like to give special thanks to: the staff at the Combat School for picking up my work for a few weeks; the CI MAJ Michie, CO LOTC LT COL Hill and the Commander COL Burnett for all their support which was much appreciated, not only for this tour but also during the NPC season.

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