Victorians employ Rugby tactics on NSW orienteers at start of Oceania

Rugby school is famous for being the birthplace of rugby union. Its also notorious for its famous School Bully - Flashman.

Anybody who has been to the school to play against them on The Close will have come across the nefarious tactic employed for years by the school in a pathetic effort to bolster their chances against visiting teams. The arriving teams atre met by a group of friendly looking Rugby students as they arrive and are taken in groups of two or three to different changing rooms, sprayed around the extensive school grounds. Heavily outnumbered and lost, the team members are then dependent on their hosts to take them to the game where they get minimal time together before the game starts.

But what of the Oceania orienteering event ?

Pre-event publicity had promised us a field packed with car-key grabbing emus. The organisers had to change these plans as the rain, which had been falling all week, continued on the day. So cars were parked on the sides of the road. Most cars. As we approached the event, we were picked out from the arriving masses and directed to park at the end of a long (700 m long) paddock. Squashed into a corner of this paddock were about 50 cars with all but a couple bearing NSW number plates.  As we trudged through the mud 700m to the start with other NSW families, we could see the selected many cruising past us on the road to park next to the event.

Tactic noted.