SOUTH AFRICA TOUR DIARY
SCARLETS Vs OSPREYS
BEHIND THE SCENES
A diary of our remarkable 18-day adventure to the Rainbow Nation and isolation! Tues, Nov 23 We’re away! Coach leaves Parc y Scarlets, stopping off at the Vale Resort for a training session before we head to Heathrow for our flight. Destination Durban (via Dubai) Wed, Nov 24 After travelling through the night we arrive at our stunning five-star hotel on the beachfront at Umhlanga Rocks. Grey skies and showers greet us but temperatures in the mid-twenties is a far cry from what we’ve left behind. Thursday Nov 25 First training session on SA soil at Crawford International School in Durban. We get an unexpected intruder, a monkey! After the boys have a meal together, news starts filtering through of a new Covid variant detected in South Africa and it looks like the games against the Sharks and Bulls aren’t going to be played. Friday, Nov 25 Individuals are sent to isolate in their rooms as management plots a route back home to avoid hotel quarantine. With SA on the UK red travel list and borders being shut, it doesn’t look promising.
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Saturday, Nov 26 We are leaving Durban on a short flight to Cape Town to link up with the other URC sides. We board the plane to nods of acknowledgements from the Munster boys who have flown down from Pretoria. Sunday, Nov 27 With a flight chartered for all four sides (us, Munster, Cardiff and Zebre) to Dublin, we arrive early at Cape Town Airport, there is a lengthy wait to check-in. We hear news of Cardiff and Munster returning positive Covid tests so can’t travel, an anxious wait for our results, but we’re all clear, relief all round. So it’s just us and Zebre on the flight to the Irish capital with Zebre connecting back to Milan. Monday Nov 28 We were hoping for different options a bit closer to home, but we learn our quarantine period will be spent in Belfast, or County Antrim to be exact. We’re off the flight, straight onto a couple of buses and heading north. Greeted by hotel security at a Holiday Inn Express, ushered off in small groups and guided to our rooms. Our home for the next 10 days. This is Day Zero.
01.01.22 I united rugby championship
