The under-13 Basin Bulls are playing two games in both Sydney and Orange — more than three hours’ drive west — during the second week of July.
With their game against Orange’s Emus, they are reciprocating a visit the Aussie team made last April.
This year’s team comprises 16 Wakatipu Rugby Club players and 10 from Arrowtown Rugby Club.
A Basin Bulls team who toured Australia in ’24 paved the way for this tour.
"We decided it would be a good trip because it was such a good trip the first time," Brendon O’Reilly, one of their six coaches who came as just a parent last time, says.
"It’s just a bit of a final wee trip before they go to high school, and a bit of a reward after spending club level all the way from when they were young fellas."
Aside from training, the boys have also participated in about a dozen fundraisers over the past nine months — good team-building exercises themselves — to help raise the $130,000 the tour is costing.
Almost half has come from sponsorships — "we’ve got such a good community that’s prepared to help", O’Reilly says.
Local Rugby Planet co-owner Miles Wilson, who also helped in ’24, supplied dress polos and training T-shirts for the squad.
Two injured squad members are still travelling — "they are our seventh and eighth coaches".
As to how they will go, O’Reilly says "the maturity of them this year compared to last year, they’re definitely playing better rugby and trusting each other more, which is awesome".
"We’ve got a lot more structure."
