Brought to you by Brick Lane Brewing, Rebel on Tour gives fans a fresh look at what our Melbourne Rebels are getting up to whilst away on tour.
This week’s guest is our superstar Sevens recruit, Lachie Anderson.
Week 9 on the road – how are you faring?
It’s actually been really exciting. When we left Melbourne, we looked at it as a two-week type tour and then obviously with the situation evolving, we took it week by week and really just focused on those short-term goals. I think that was a really good way to approach everything and now we’ve ended up in Terrigal, so if you’re ever going to be stuck somewhere, this is a pretty nice spot to be.
Who’s been your road trip roommate so far?
Well I started the tour off with Michael Wells, but he got a better offer to move in with his fiancé, so now I’m with Tommy Pincus, who’s a ripping fella by the way. He (Wells) didn’t actually submit his leave with me; just got up one day and took his belongings and never came back, so we’ll need to sit down and have a conversation about that at some point. Tommy is pretty quiet but a few doors up the hallway we have big Cabous Eloff – the big South African - snoring all night, which actually trickles pretty loudly down the hallway.
At the start of the year, you were planning to be representing Australia at the Tokyo Olympics in June– has that recently crossed your mind or been discussed amongst the Sevens boys?
Yeah it was probably two-weeks ago now, we were in the three-day schedule to be playing in Tokyo. It’s been in the back of our minds and definitely something we’ve been thinking about because we invested a large part of our lives leading into it. While it’s disappointing, at the same time, we’ve all just been soaking up these new opportunities and controlling what we can control.
On your first day with the Rebels, you mentioned you were a big Lebron James fan – have you been following the restart of the NBA?
Yes! It’s been awesome watching and following it again and really great for live sport in America - they’re doing it pretty tough as well, so it’s been one small step I suppose to normality again for them. Me and Tommy Pincus – he loves NBA as well – have been having games on daily and it’s been really good. It’s hard to read into the early rounds but I’ll have to back the Lakers.
Who’s been the Rebels MVP on tour?
There's been a few actually. Billy Meakes has a Tuesday trivia night that is building up some momentum, so the boys look forward to that on a weekly basis. Matt To’omua keeps promising all us backs, that he’ll take us out for breakfast in the morning and shout us, but we’re all still waiting on that to happen. Andrew Deegan has been good for getting the mood up and providing motivation when we’re a bit low on that side of things. Deegs is really good for a motivational speech.
What artist or song has been doing the rounds the most on tour so far?
Some of the boys have been really getting around Taylor Swift on TickTok. She’s actually been getting the boys up quite a bit lately.
Favourite moment from the past two months?
Watching the boys play the Brumbies for sure. That was one of those wins where you enjoy watching it and I’m sure they enjoyed playing it - you really get to celebrate those wins. Seeing all the hard work for three to four weeks, getting better each week and then getting to see that performance in pretty tough conditions, that was special to watch.
