Last-minute travel change feels like a 'homecoming' for Wallabies

Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 4:37 AM
Beth Newman
by Beth Newman
The Wallabies have wasted no time with Typhoon Hagibis closing in, jumping on a bus straight to Odawara, the place Michael Cheika referred to as their 'home ground' in Japan.

Wallabies centre Samu Kerevi says a last-minute detour to Odawara after a "hectic" night felt like going home for Australia after the team changed their plans to avoid the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis.

The Wallabies beat Georgia in Shizuoka, 200km south of Tokyo, on Friday night and were initially intending on returning to Tokyo on Saturday before flying to Oita for their quarter-final on Monday.

By Friday night, all trains and planes in and out of Tokyo on Saturday had been cancelled with Typhoon Hagibis incoming and the impact is expected to be felt for days as the backlog is cleared.

Given the looming chaos, the Wallabies opted to drive to Odawara, 64km south of Tokyo, on the team's bus and arrived in the town at around 3am JST on Saturday morning.

Kerevi said it was a "hectic" night of travel for the team but said he was grateful that players, staff and their families managed to make it to Odawara and to security.

Odawara gave the Wallabies a warm welcome ahead of the World Cup. Photo: RUGBY.com.au/Stuart Walmsley"It was quite hectic. Looking back it was pretty funny," he said.

"Obviously plans have changed and you have to give massive credit and a pat on the back to staff.

"Some of the boys had to do ASADA testing which held us back but all the boys waiting in the bus had meals ready for us. Straight from the stadium we travelled all the way to Odawara which took about 2 and a half hours, three hours.

"By the time I was in bed it was about 3am."

Kerevi said while it was a long night of travel, there was no whinging from the side as they moved to get themselves into accommodation.

"We had music jamming, guys were watching Netfix, some guys were sleeping, some guys were eating," he said.

"It was raining pretty hard, we put the windows down and tried to taste the rain. It was an awesome trip.

"We can’t complain, these things are uncontrollable. I thought the staff did really well to organise all this. They worked tirelessly around the clock for us.

"There’s no complaint from the boys, we understand you can’t tell a typhoon to go away. It was all good from us, got on to the bus, the boys were throwing jokes, just trying to make the bus trip really exciting. But halfway through guys were out on their feet, just sleeping, just really tired.

"We are happy to be here and safe."


Odawara is familiar territory for the Wallabies, who spent the lead-in to the World Cup in the town and also trained there after the third Bledisloe Test in Yokohama last year.

Kerevi said arriving in Odawara felt in some ways like returning home for the Wallabies.

"This is the perfect place for us to be at the moment, in terms of our familiarity," he said.

"This is basically home for us, being here is awesome.

"The facilities are awesome, the rooms, we’ve got our gym in the hotel, so in terms of that, travel is minimised besides going to the fields.

"Our recovery is here, I think that was the biggest one for us, minimising our travel time in terms of between training sessions.

"Being able to go one bus out to training and still get our sleep in, our recovery. The food here is awesome, the staff here are awesome. We couldn’t have had it any better."

Australia will stay in Odawara until Wednesday with a view to avoiding any airport chaos before travelling to Oita for their knockout match.

Typhon Hagibis is set to hit on Saturday. Photo: Supplied

Australia’s likely quarter-final opponents England, who they will face unless Uruguay topple Wales on Sunday, are already in the south of Japan.

England flew to Miyazaki, which was also their pre-tournament base, on Thursday after news that their final pool match against France had been cancelled.

Typhoon Hagibis, an estimated 1400km in diameter, is expected to hit Tokyo on Saturday evening with predicted winds of more than 160km/h.

Australia will feel some of the effects of that storm in the coastal area but once it has passed, their focus will be on an epic match-up against the English.

Already, Wallabies coach Michael Cheika was starting a week of mind games off, jibing England coach Eddie Jones for saying that the “typhoon gods” were smiling upon his team and giving them an extra week of preparation.

Wallabies halfback Will Genia said he was relishing the chance to play England and turn around a run of six straight losses to their rivals.

"Really excited,” he said.

“It's always a big tough game against them and I think they've probably held the wood over us for the last couple of years, so really looking forward to it.

“It'll be tough and it's a good thing we have an eight-day turnaround to get prepared for it."

Lock Izack Rodda was the Wallabies’ best in their final pool win over Georgia and said he couldn’t wait to get stuck into quarter-final prep in his maiden World Cup.

"It's my first World Cup, I was stoked just to get the opportunity to come here, but now we're down to the quarter-finals and the semis, and it's very exciting,” he said.

“I'm over the moon about it and will hopefully push for a spot next week (in the quarter-finals)."

The Wallabies take on England in a Rugby World Cup quarter-final on Saturday October 19 at Oita Stadium, kicking off at 4:15pm local, 6:15pm AEDT, LIVE on Foxtel, Network Ten and via RUGBY.com.au RADIO, Rugby Xplorer and Amazon Alexa.

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