Alex Rae's tour diary during Under 19 World Championships
WELL, here we are in Durban, South Africa, for the IRB Under 19s World Championships.
I have never been to South Africa before, let alone played against a Southern Hemisphere side at 15-a-side rugby so I think this is going to be an exciting three weeks.
Although so far we haven't really got out of our hotel much it seems like a nice place and at least the weather is hot.
We have all settled in now and went through our first training session on Tuesday. It was a good session with the boys all clicking together after a few weeks apart following the end of the Six Nations championship. The weather does take its toll on you, it is very hot, but it has also rained a lot and at least the rain is warm. I think that we've all acclimatised before our first game against Scotland this afternoon.
Apart from training, most of the guys have been hanging around in the games room or playing poker, though I am staying well out of that. My Worcester teammate Dylan Hartley is too good at that game!
It is nice to be out here with him even though I know most of the squad well. Being on tour for three weeks is very different to training with Worcester. Here, you are with your team-mates day in, day out, so you need to get on with them and I am glad to say we do all get on well.
We're all looking forward to today's game with Scotland at Kings Park.
We played them recently in the Six Nations championships but it was a below-par performance. All the boys are eager to show their true colours on the field to our Celtic friends.
We are looking for a decent win, with hopefully four tries that will hand us a bonus point. We are all quite confident that if we play to the best of our ability we can win this game comfortably.
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