International Relations

After what seemed like an eternity in the air, I finally touched down in sunny London. Yes, you heard it correctly, sunny.

Leaving my Convict boys in Dublin for three intensive days of training, I thought it was smart to separate myself to avoid leading them astray.

I tried to cram as much as possible into two and a half days on a meagre 15 minutes of sleep.

As you can imagine, rugby was the furthest thing from my mind as I swished from club to club and beer to beer.

After a sunburnt day on a double-decker bus tour of the mother city, I finally crumbled from jetlag. I need to go home now, was all I could mutter to my friends.

Crashing instantly, I slept soundly till morning and my return flight to Dublin.

Club rules state we all must wear our assigned uniform when in transit, so within seconds I was spotted by other competitors. Though it took a while to explain my association with the Convicts, once I had done so it became clear our pack of fine young men were regarded as the team to watch. I had the joy of sharing a cab back to our accommodation with the Canadian competitors and they were very guarded in their conversation once they found out which team I was associated with. In fact, it was almost as if they considered me an enemy -¦ and here I was ready to befriend them.

With two teams, 50 players and 20 support crew we are clearly the titans of this year’s competition.

On arrival I was checked in and given just moments to transform into my gorgeous other self to attend the first official engagement of the tour -“ hosting the Convicts talent quest in a straight bar. Needless to say there were yodelling, singing, dancing and a monologue of sorts -“ all of which sent the locals into a frenzy.

After the winner was announced we piled into a bus and headed off to the Emerald Warriors’ official welcome at the Dragon.

This amazing club was, within five minutes, filled with international rugby boys. There wasn’t a dry seat in the house.

Jetlag hit us all and by 11:30pm we were all in bed to rest up for our last chance to train before competition.