April 16, 2021 • 45 mins
In this powerful and unfiltered episode of Unfiltered Power, USA Rugby stars Ilona Maher and Naya Tapper open up about the real life of professional athletes on the world stage. From the highs of international competition to the quiet moments between matches, they share what it truly means to live life on tour — the friendships, the fatigue, the freedom, and the fight to stay grounded while constantly on the move. Hear Ilona and Naya as you’ve never heard them before — honest, raw, and full of laughter — as they take you inside the emotional and physical rollercoaster of representing your country while navigating life, identity, and purpose around the globe. Whether you’re a rugby fan, athlete, or someone chasing big dreams, this intimate conversation reveals the truth about what it’s really like to live the global athlete lifestyle.
🎧 Keywords/Tags:
Ilona Maher, Naya Tapper, USA Rugby, rugby sevens, women’s rugby, rugby podcast, life on tour, athlete lifestyle, sports travel, women in sport, professional rugby, rugby life, mental health in sport, team USA, global athletes, sports journey, Unfiltered Power Podcast, motivational sports stories, behind the scenes rugby, athlete interviews, rugby culture
Hosts: Naya Tapper & Ilona Maher
For more information, links and resources plus conversations from the world of women’s sport including articles, blogs, videos and podcasts visit wispsports.com. WiSP Sports is the World’s First and Only Podcast Network for Women’s Sport with more than 60 hosts, 1300+ episodes across 50 shows and over 7 million downloads. WiSP Sports is on all major podcast players. Follow WiSP Sports on social media @WiSPsports. Contact us at info@wispsports.com.
🎧 Keywords/Tags:
Ilona Maher, Naya Tapper, USA Rugby, rugby sevens, women’s rugby, rugby podcast, life on tour, athlete lifestyle, sports travel, women in sport, professional rugby, rugby life, mental health in sport, team USA, global athletes, sports journey, Unfiltered Power Podcast, motivational sports stories, behind the scenes rugby, athlete interviews, rugby culture
Hosts: Naya Tapper & Ilona Maher
For more information, links and resources plus conversations from the world of women’s sport including articles, blogs, videos and podcasts visit wispsports.com. WiSP Sports is the World’s First and Only Podcast Network for Women’s Sport with more than 60 hosts, 1300+ episodes across 50 shows and over 7 million downloads. WiSP Sports is on all major podcast players. Follow WiSP Sports on social media @WiSPsports. Contact us at info@wispsports.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Peter, we go, Hay Cubs, and welcome to the Leo's Den.
My name's Nyat and I got COVIDon. My last two are in Spain.
Not funny, Hey, cubs,I'm a lone avoid teammates call me
low. And I'm getting to thatpoint in tour where I'm really just everybody's
(00:27):
getting on my last nerve, okay, and I cannot get away from anyone.
And we are two leos who lovesto hear themselves taught. So you
all know how we start off ourpodcast. We're gonna start with our Leo
horoscope. So today is April fifth, twenty twenty one, and the horoscope
(00:52):
is you can meet new friends ata social gathering Leo, people who could
become valuable business contexts. You mightlearn of new and different investment opportunities that
reflect the changing times, and theseto capture your imagination. Your understanding of
others runs deep, so relations shouldbe that's a new word. Congenial.
Congenial. I'm you're in the rightmovie to make the necessary decisions. Unhesitant,
(01:19):
unhesitatingly. Wow. I feel likeevery time we do the horoscopes,
it's kind of like a lesson it'slike like we're learning our help of bits.
Again, we don't know what thesewords. This is kind of interesting
because we were just talking about that. We were talking about like life after
Rugby and how we're going to hitup all the sources we've met through Rugby
to try to get jobs. Yeah, use the networking that we've been able
(01:44):
to get into with Rugby after whichI think it's super super important. Um
yeah, because it's it's not likeit's really not what you know, it's
who you know, and Rugby hascreated this whole social network for us,
so nan we'd be at these socialevents trying to meet everybody we can because
we need to make the big buck. Someday we need to be hired by
(02:06):
somebody lunch per. And that's funnyyou say that because I remember the conversation
we had today and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna,
you know, go to a businessmanand be like, hey, like just
teach me and I can do it. And you're like, you don't think
you need a degree, and likeyou said, I'll be not who you
know, not what you know.So yeah, So today, because we
will be talking about life on tour, a lot of people may not know
(02:32):
exactly what that means, so lowyou want to give them a little insight
into what tour exactly is for us. Yeah, so when we say tour,
we mean when we go to thesetournaments. So usually we play tournaments
all over the world. You know, we go to Dubai, Cape Town,
Sydney, New Zealand. So whenwe go on tour, we go
to these places, we spend aweek, we train there and then we
(02:53):
play in a tournament that weekend.So right now, actually we're in Dubai
for a tournament, and we gothere last Friday, I think, and
then we've been here just for aweek now training and then we played this
weekend. We're gonna play next weekendas well. And the reason we have
to go on tour is because weare a national team. So unlike the
(03:15):
NBA or the MLB or NHL,like they have teams in the US where
they can all just kind of playin the US where it's us, we
have to go and play all theother national teams from the other countries,
which I think has been amazing becausewe've been able to travel the world and
see some amazing places that we probablywould have not been able to do or
(03:39):
see if we weren't playing rugby.So that's why we have to go on
tours because most of our games areout of the country, but we do
have some in the country when wehave like big world stage games. Yeah,
and it's kind of we want toget there earlier two because there's like
massive time changes. So we goto Dubai, which is twelve hours thirteen
hours from California, so we haveto get into that times when we have
(04:01):
to get into the heat and kindof figure out the temperature and everything like
that. But it is amazing thatwe get to travel to these places and
spend a week here and we usuallyhave an off day and I mean we've
done some cool stuff on our offdays. So night, how many times
have you been to Dubai? Now, this is my third time in Dubai.
Not many people can say that.Yeah, I think it's either my
third or fourth. And like oneyear we were here, we went like
(04:25):
dune bugging and we went on camelsand we got all these four wheelers.
It was I mean, it wasjust so cool that we get to live
this life on tour. Yeah.Yeah, And just in case you didn't
know, everybody doesn't go on touron our team. So we have a
based group of about twenty five girlswho we trained with on a daily basis
(04:48):
in Ulivista, California, at ourtraining site, but for tours, only
a certain amount of girls go.It's the same as in college with basketball.
With basketball, you have like atraveling team. So that's kind of
what tour is for us, isthe traveling team going to play. So
you're specifically selected by your coach basedon performance and what you can provide for
(05:11):
the team. So how many peopleusually go on tour with us? Yes,
so we usually bring twelve, butwhen we do double header tournaments where
we go from like Dubai and thenthe next we won't play in capes,
I want to bring like fourteen orthirteen. I think what's so cool about
this is like it kind of keepsus working that we are not always making
(05:31):
the team. It doesn't make it'slike, oh, well I'll make the
team so I can. I don'thave to work as hard by having to
continuously make tour. It just meansevery practice you have to come ready to
play because you want to make thatplane, right, you want to go
on tour it, but it's notguaranteed for you. So I have like
all these people messaging me like,oh, are you gonna go to the
Olympics, And I'm like, I'mgonna really hope. I hope to go
to the Olympics. Yeah, butI need to keep working to make it
(05:54):
there, so stop jinxing me.People, And that's like a really straight
thing for them. When they hearthat, They're like, oh, your
team made it to the Olympics,and it's like, yes, my team
made it to the Olympics, butus, as individual players, we have
to get selected to travel to playon those teams. Also, a lot
(06:15):
of people probably wonder, okay forthe girls that go, like great,
they get to play, you keepit competitive by making them work to get
on the team. For the girlswho don't go, what happens. Have
you ever been one of those girlswho wasn't selected for a tournament, whether
it was for injury, performance,you were new you ever since you've been
here? Have you been to everytour? I have been to every tour
(06:38):
since I've been here. I thinkI came off. I came in right
for the France tournament, and soI was lucky in that time where he
would just take the coach would kindof take whoever. So I was like,
cool, I got to go ontour and did I know what I
was doing? No, I didn'tknow what I was doing. But now
we've kind of created this really coolculture of like, the best players are
(06:58):
going to come and you have tohave play with us and learned and you
have to be a really you haveto know our system to come on tour.
So it almost makes it this specialspot to be one of those twelve
and it's this really cool thing tostrive for. Have you not made some
tours? I think in the beginning, well, I don't know. I
(07:19):
had got cut, so there wasdefinitely that time, so you probably need
to make it the Yeah, ButI think once I got here, like
it was kind of the same situationas you, I was kind of and
everyone for the most part that Ican remember if I'm wrong, you know
whatever. But just a little moreinformation on that. For the people who
(07:40):
go, it's the traveling team,and for the people who don't go,
we call them the home team.And usually it'll be about five to ten
girls, depending on what our groupis looking like each year, and they'll
stay back with one of the extrastrength and conditioning coaches or an assistant coach
if we have one at the moment, and they'll keep on training, you
know. So because we're out here, the traveling team is out there working
(08:03):
and competing. So when we getback, we want to make sure that
the people who didn't travel the hometeam are still ready to go and you
know, compete again for a spoton the traveling team. Yeah, and
then people it's always like interesting,So we do travel to these amazing places,
but we it's our job. Ithink when people don't realize is yeah,
we get to go to Dubai,we need to go to Cape Town,
(08:24):
but it's our job. So yes, we don't have to pay for
travel and housing like that, butwe're there expected to perform, so we're
they're expected to hopefully win a medal, do well in a tournament. So
it's it is amazing to travel,but it's also this pressure of we only
have so many times in the yearwhen we do get to go on tour,
(08:46):
so this precture of really using itto our advantage and doing the best
we can. And let's get intoa little more of what traveling looks like
because there's like long plane rides,long bus rides, multiple connections. What
do you eat? What are youwearing? Let's talk about that. What
(09:07):
does our kit look like? Dowe wear kid? Do we get to
where we want? So we areCanterbury right now, so we wear all
Canterbury stuff and we sometimes have tolook trash. I love it when we
match. Do you like when wematch? Because if I had my way,
we would be matching down to ourunderwear. Okay, I love it.
(09:30):
I think I'm gonna say this first. I think you love it because
when you see a group of peoplewearing the same thing, all eyes are
on them. Yes, but Idon't know. It depends if the stuff
is comfortable, you know, great, but if it's not comfortable. I
would prefer to like wear my ownstuff because I feel like I got swaggy
(09:50):
stuff too, Like I can getindividual attention from my own outfit, the
team kit. Just the other dayat practice, our first day here at
practice, all of start in ourCanterberry like we don't have to, but
we're in our Canterbury. NiFe comesout with a Nion fire shirt and like
pink Nike shorts, and I waslike, NAO, what yeah, you
look really good. What's up,dude? Well yeah, because they were
(10:13):
like, oh, you can wearwhatever you want, I'm like, okay,
well I'm gonna say my kid forlike the kid days, because who
knows when you get laundry on tourand you always got to promote the brand.
I got my nag on fire shirton right now. Oh my goodness.
But like so when we do travelthough, when we're going we're on
the plane rides, on bus rides, we do try to match um,
just so we can like look reallyprofessional. And it's also like because our
(10:35):
sponsors, so we need to bewearing all our sponsor gear. We can't
have anything else that's not like Canterbury. We can't be wearing Nike or Adidas
something like that. We have tobe matching. And then I mean to
do buy what We had a sixteenhour plane ride, so Deacon pretty good
with long flights at this point.Do you have keys for your long flights?
(10:56):
What do you do? I reallyjust like eat, watch a movie,
pass out, repeat, repeat,repeat, I probably do the same.
I okay, this is kind ofweird, but I love airplane food
because it's so fun to like youget to know it's like a fun experience,
like what if here we go withyou again? I'm like, what
(11:20):
is this? What is this?And so I've now found KLM has some
of the best airplane food. Theydo, yeah, they have really good
food. But we have flown Emiratesbusiness class and I felt bougie as heck,
okay, that was amazing lovely.Um. One of my favorite things
about traveling is that I save money. We don't have to pay for food,
(11:43):
we don't have to pay for travel, and you're away from like the
comfort of your home to where youcould like go shopping or like go grocery
shopping, or go to the moviesor go out for dinner, and like
here it's like you can't really domuch, so you're really like saving your
money. And most of the foodwe eat is paid for and a lot
(12:07):
of the activities sometimes that we getto do are paid for. So I
think that's one of the things I'velearned to appreciate from traveling is being able
to save my money. I willsay, though, like you know,
pre COVID, when we go toplaces that our dollar is better, I
go wild. I will go wild. Like in Australia, I probably spent
five hundred dollars just at a Lululemonoutlet, okay, and then I got
(12:30):
this in Cape Town. I waslike, I was like, I'm hoping
this a calling me like giving themall my money. So it is I
actually shop more on tour than Ido at home. Yeah. Actually I
just lie because I online shop yesterdayand spent about five hundred dollars because I
was bored. So I'm like nothing. Also do so on tour. Of
(12:52):
course, we stay in the hotelseverywhere we go, and we stay with
our roommates. So for me,I always have the same roommate, my
girl Nicole. She in the background, she's making a little bit of noise.
But I always were with Nicole.But we have changed our roommates sometimes.
What about you, Nyah, Ithink my roommates have changed probably every
(13:16):
time. I don't have anybody whoI'm like, well, yeah, at
the moment, I don't have anybodywho I'm like, oh, that's who
I'm always with. It's been changing, and it changes, as we said,
because you don't know who's going togo on tour, you know,
Yeah, like the day that Nicoleor you doesn't go on tour, y'all
are going to be a freaking heartbrokenbecause of the roommates situation. Can you
knock on wood right now? Jem, thank you, No, it is
(13:41):
I was in that. I wasa roommates last year in Australia with Chris,
and then I was roommates with Kurshand I was like, Kursh,
we're not moving our beds apart.We are sleeping right next to each other
because that's what Nicole and I do, and then like the same with Chris.
So it was cool to be withother people. But I do think
at times, like you know yourroommate, and especially in these COVID times
where we can't leave our room,having a roommate that you vibe with is
(14:05):
important because that's all you're with andyou do get annoyed. Yeah, for
sure. And just for you cubslistening on. In the beginning, our
roommates were picked for us, andthen as time went on, we've started
being able to select our top threeand majority of the time you would get
(14:28):
one of those people. And nowlately we've just been kind of handling that
aspect as players on our own andpicking our own roommates so that how do
you feel about that. Do youlike how it was before or do you
love how it is now. Iguess for me it doesn't really matter because
I'm always with Nicole, so it'slike I'll be with her anyway. But
(14:50):
again, yeah, maybe it's likethere is a time when one of us
isn't on there, I'll be lost. Yeah, but hopefully it'll be okay.
But okay, So here's the thingthough, in Spain, it is
tough in COVID because you know,you have to isolate. You can't be
with people like we had to isolate, and if your roommate tests positive,
then you have to close contact.So it's like also you have to build
distrust with your roommate as well,and you have to be smart and that's
(15:13):
the only person you can really talkto because you don't want to mix and
mingle too much. So I startto lose conversation topic and I'm like,
Okay, well, I guess we'lljust talk about this now. And I
think that brings us to like theconversation of the pros and cons of having
a roommate, you know, becausewe go from being in the comfort of
our homes on a daily basis andthen coming to train and being able to
(15:35):
go back home and being in yourown space versus traveling and you're going to
training, then you're coming back andbeing with your roommate. Then you're going
to dinner and you're coming back tobe with your roommate. There's really like
no escape, you know. SoI think for me the pros of having
a roommate, because we have tohave a roommate, you know, is
(15:58):
for me, I'm not as scaredat night in the dark, Oh my
gosh, you child. I feelmore comfortable when somebody is sleeping near me,
and you get to meet new people. If you're having different roommates every
single time, you get to geta little more closer to your roommates or
get even more closer to your bestfriends in your situation. Pecked. So,
(16:22):
while we're we are on tour,we do of course train, but
we honestly don't train as much Ithink as people would think because it's like
leading up to that tournament week.It's we know we're gonna just push our
bodies to limit over the weekend,so that those five days when we get
here before a tournament, it's kindof like almost a chiller period, would
(16:45):
you agree, Like we have maybefour or three training sessions, some gym
sessions, but other than that,it's like we've done the work beforehand and
now it's just kind of refining sothat we can save our bodies for the
tournament. Yeah. I agree withyou on that. It's a lot more
chill and like going through execution andsmall individual skills just to get us excited
(17:11):
and ready for game weekend. Yeah, because I mean, if you're pounding
the body trying to figure things outbefore tournament, you're not ready. It's
like we've done the work, we'reready. We just need to kind of
go over it, maybe fine tunea little bit off upset pieces or whatnot.
But other than that, we justkind of chill, chill a little
bit. I mean, one thingfor our team is that we are constantly
(17:33):
getting coffee, at least at leastI am, but it's kind of this
fun thing that our team does isthat we're always going to these new places
and finding coffee shops, which Ilove. But you're not a coffee drinker
though, Nia, No, Idon't drink coffee. So even though we
do still train, we don't trainas much, but we have a lot
of off time and a lot oftime to get into other things when we're
(17:59):
not training. So, as Lowsaid, for our off days, a
lot of us pre COVID would goand get coffee or go and do excursions,
depending on what country you were in. Low, what was your like
go to activities to do whenever therewas an off day. I freaking love
the off days and that we hadthe opportunity to go and experience the place
(18:23):
we're in a little bit. Solike as I said, and do buy.
A couple of years ago, wewent on this amazing desert tour and
that was so fun. And thenwhen I was in Cape Town, I
hit up a friend and that I'dnever met before because I was just getting
sick of everybody out the guy Ineed to go to hang out somebody who
was on my team, and soI went hung out with her and she
took me all around Cape Town.We went to this beach and she took
me here, and it was like, I felt like I got to experience
(18:45):
Cape Town. We've done some reallycool stuff. What are some of the
co cool stuff you've done in youroff days? Anywhere where there's a beach
there, shopping, I love tolike find the exclusive shoe store and whatever
country I'm in to see what theyhave to offer, specifically Nike. Like
m London had an amazing Nike storeand I was in there for good three
(19:08):
hours and probably spent more money thanI should have. But we only get
like one off day, you know. Yeah, so you kind of gotta
really be selective with what you decideto do because we get that off day.
But you know a lot of thetimes it's like, Okay, you
got four hours to go do whatyou want, you know, versus like
a whole day. So yeah,you know what was fun? I don't
(19:32):
think you did this in Australia.But did you go to Manly Beach in
Australia? Is that where you likewe got the budget? Go? No,
we got No, I didn't goto that. So here's a little
thing about Naia. Sometimes she justlikes to chill out though yeah, just
our teammates. This is why wecan't record podcast floating through my door sometimes
(19:56):
I I just like the children room. We went to the pool they the
day. We're like, where's niceShe's like it's probably sleeping. So now
I just likes to chill But whenwe were in Australia. We went to
this place called Manly Beach and wemet up with the Budgee Smugglers guys and
they're like, hey, you guyswant to hop on our boat? And
we're like, birds, want tohop on your boat, sir. So
we all got budge Smugglers and thenwe just hopped on their boat, their
speedboat and we just went around Sydneyand Manly Beach and we were crashing through
(20:22):
the waves. We saw some seals. I mean, it was amazing,
Like we get to meet all thesepeople on tour. That's my that's my
favorite thing. Yeah, I meanI really do love like going out and
doing new things. But as yousaid, like there's some places where we've
been to so many times and it'slike, okay, I am not going
to see the Birch Khalifa again.You know. Like sometimes I'm just like
(20:47):
I just need a day to likeliterally be by myself, because I get
those days at home, you knowon the weekend. Yeah, so like
being here, especially if you havea roommate, it's like okay, they're
gonna be gone. I can kindlyhave some time to just chill, renew
my mind and just relax and alot of times, like I'll even try
to find spas in the area,like Dubai. I love going to their
(21:07):
spa Dubai. It's lovely, it'sreally nice. So everybody has a lot
of different things they're interested in doing, and they can be based on is
this your first time, it's justyour third time? You know? Naya
love self care. I love thatabout do just give her a good facial
(21:29):
give her a good massage. That'sall she wants, all right, Yeah,
so of course it's very important.So of course we do have fun
on tour, but um, andthen it comes down to game days.
So we do do two tournaments side, which means we play three fourteen minute
games off on two days, twodays of the week. So do you
have any game day rituals, anythingyou got to do before game days?
(21:52):
We usually our games start in themorning, probably sometimes it can be pretty
early. Then we'll have a bigrest period where we'll chill out. We'll
have an other game and then anotherbig rest period and then another Game's kind
of the basic setup. I thinkthe only ritual I would say is just
having a good meal the night beforeand making sure I get the sleep I
need because a lot of the timeswe are we usually have early starts to
(22:17):
our tournament day. So like sleepis like super important to me because if
not, I am a diash inthe morning and that's not good. This
is true. Do we have abeat button? We have? This is
true? I think for me onceonce our dietesition is like hey, guys,
okay, it's time to start reallygetting your carbs, and a mom
(22:37):
like, ite's ready, it's gotime, it's go tarrs. I'm like
POSSI. I remember my first tourin France. They were like, okay,
guys, start carbo loading and Iwas like, okay, cool.
So I hate like choging croissans,I was eating tarts, I was eating
baghets and I was like, no, guys, this is I'm just carbo
loading. I'm getting ready to playmy five minutes, so I'll probably play
all weekend. But that is oneof my favorite things, so it is
(23:00):
key. I'm kind of learning now. It's interesting when you talk about body
confidence and you know we've had aneating episode, but I would almost use
tours of time to like lose weightbecause we're not eating what we want to
eat. But now I'm like,no, I can't be doing this.
I need to keep my weight upbecause that's my energy source, and I
need to have the energy throughout theweekend to play six games and get up
(23:21):
for those six games. So you, I mean key is snacks? Like
you are a snack person, right, Yeah, depending on the size of
the male I have, or ifI like, you know, how you
bring snacks and then you get thereand you're like, dang, I didn't
really want that snack that I brought. Like that happens a lot for me.
So sometimes I'm just like eating biggermeals because I'm not really enjoying my
(23:41):
snacks. But sometimes I am abig snacker. Yeah yeah. And you
your sun flower seed eaters. SoI've heard from Nia's past roommates so that
they shower, get that Nia willjust lay in your bed and much on
sunflower seeds while walk is the officeor some TVs. That is a con
(24:03):
of having a roommate that you haveto feel like, uh, what is
the words super I don't know theway like you feel bad about like getting
comfortable and eating your subflossies because youknow it's like you're gonna talk about you
later. I those stories I've heard. We've heard of some people who like
(24:25):
Jordan and Mia or roommates once.I guess in Sydney, and I guess
Jordan woke up to like crinkling paper. It's over there eating like chopping on
a pop tart. I mean,I get that with Nicole too. She
has to wake up. She's she'sbeen eating bars and I'm like, oh,
hello, what time is it.She's like, I'm hungry. I'm
like, okay, some of usare sleeping. Hey, guys, we'll
(24:48):
be right back after this commercial break. So and then on game days,
do you have any like snacks youeat? I love beef jerky and probably
like apple sauce and the little energyChoose delicious. Yeah, I'm I'm a
(25:10):
peanut butter person myself. Banana pretzels, Oh gosh, I love pretzels.
Um Energy choose as well. Ijust kind of eat them like their gushers,
you know, no purpose. Yeah, let's talk to them a little
bit about what like a game daywould look like, you know. So,
(25:32):
um, usually let's let's talk aboutI guess last week, so we
had to wake up at five am, five thirty thirty am for me,
because I like to play it close. Um, and from there, like
we have to weigh in and Ithink, um, I was wondering,
(25:53):
like why don't we have to weighin so much? But I think most
of it is just to make surethat we're hydrated, right, Yes,
that's that's key. We wait inconstantly throughout game days. We waited in
the morning, We wait before everygame and right after every game just to
see if you're staying with your waterand you're you're staying hydrated, because that
is key, yeah, especially outhere in hot Ad Dubai. But so
(26:15):
we go way in and then weusually head to breakfast. We kind of
talked to in the last podcast aboutwhat a meal on tour looks like for
us, specifically for breakfast, andthen we'll head up, grab our bags,
and we get on the bus andhead to the stadium. And then
we do something called the primer.So it's not a practice just yet,
(26:37):
but it's like it's really a primerto get our body going. So it's
like we'll involve bandwork, some someeasy stretches, some movements and passing just
to get the body ready to reallyhit it. So we do a primer
a little bit before and then wejust kind of chill in our locker room
for a little bit and then tapingstarts, and so you know, all
of us with our glass angles,we got to get our ankles taped by
the best athletic train of there isa cool to miss. So we get
(27:00):
her ankles taped and she's a leo. Yes, that's why she's so amazing.
Yeah, and then we it's alot of like kind of waiting.
So it's this time of like youhave you don't want to be doing too
much because you're going to be playingstand. So it's waiting. It's getting
yourself psyched. I write in ajournal, sometimes I write in my phone
when I want to do I'll watchover some clips. What do you do?
(27:23):
I'm usually like stretching, doing somedeep rom water band stretching, just
to make sure my legs are looseand ready to run fast. I see,
I see you over there in thecorner. Sometimes she's working the band
and putting her knee up to herchest or some stuff like that. Very
flexible. I'll go do some stuff. I like listening to music. Do
you listen to music? Like,do you have a certain so you listen
(27:45):
to that gets you pumped. No, I can usually shuffle through like my
whole Spotify, and the vibe isalways different. Sometimes I'm listening to like
slow IR and B music that Ican sing too, and then other times
I'm listening to like hip hop musicto get me hyped. So it just
depends on the day and it's time, yeah, And then we have a
(28:06):
fifteen minute role and we take alight up which is going to be like
amino acids and some electro lights,just to get us going. And we
always played the song shots by LittleJohn because we have to shoot shoot it
like a shot, so it's likeshot shot shot shot shot sh ups,
and it's this fun thing really getsus going. And then we'll usually go
over some film of the other teamand what we need to do to this
game, and then have a littlebit of time left, and then we
(28:29):
go out for warm up. Yeah, And then in the warm up,
it's about what ten to fifteen minutes, we're kind of going through regular A
skip B skip that type of stuff, doing some running build ups, and
then we do a small segment ofcontact to get our shoulders ready, and
we do kind of a run throughof our set pieces and then you know,
(28:55):
we get our gatorade. Lately we'vebeen getting our pd Light pop stick
to keep us rated. And thenwe head to the tunnel and that's kind
of where the aurora is and you'relike getting hyped and ready and you're in
there with the other team that you'regonna go against, and um. One
thing that we usually do is wesay, uh, well, Jordan will
(29:18):
do her weird sound. We're gonnahave to have like a little sirenired to
everybody. Yeah. I get toeverybody hype and ready to go. And
once we get the que that it'sgame time, you're run out and do
our business, you know. Ye. Now do you get stressed the tunnel?
Sometimes I just get Even though Ido this all the time, it's
my job playing sevens, I getso nervous. Sometimes we could be playing,
(29:44):
you know, a pretty lower seedteam and I'm out there ready to
poop my pants because I'm so nervous. What about you? Um, not
so much. I mainly Scott andNia. Oh my god. I don't
want to seem like I'm like neverscared of anything or never unconfident or anything.
But in those situations, I'm justin the mindset of okay, like
(30:07):
I'm here and whatever it will be, it's gonna be, so like,
you know, let's just go anddo what the plan that is already set
in life. Just go do that, so you know, And most of
the time I'm trying to catch mybreath from the warm up. So I
feel like that's why I get toonervousness, because the warm up will make
me so tired and I'm like,yeah, how am I going to do
(30:27):
this? I'm breathing heavy from doingone lap. One of the things that
we forgot to talk about that isvery important in our game day is our
game day packing list, because wenot only packed to come to the tournament,
but we also packed to go tothe stadium as well. Um,
you want to talk a little bitabout that. Low. I mean,
(30:48):
it's all all the normal stuff.You gotta have your cleats, mouthguards,
you're shorts, you're jersey, youryour tank top, your socks, snacks.
Is there is there anything random thatyou always have to bring and you're
packing back to the stadium. Idon't think so. I think I'm pretty
(31:11):
boring. What about you? Probablymy chapstick and my my airplane pillow and
my covers, doesn't case I wantto take a little nappy no matter where
I go. Yeah, okay,um, I think I just kind of
bring the regular stuff and I prettymuch just wear it all day long.
Just all the rules, all therules, and then after games, I
(31:34):
mean it's pretty simple. We comeafter games, we immediately kind of break
it down. Then we do ourlegs up, belly breathing for a little
bit, and then we way outand we'll have our protein shakes, and
then we kind of just we doour shout outs, which I think is
really fun as we shout out whatpeople did in the game so well,
I'll be like, shout out toNya for that amazing run up the wing,
(31:55):
shout out to Abby for that aerios. It's kind of a cool thing
to like bring to light the goodthings we did before we probably talked about
whatever we messed up. Yeah.Yeah, And do you ever feel like
tension in the room after, whetherit's for you, for yourself or for
the team as a whole, basedon like what the results of the previous
(32:15):
game were. For sure, Imean it's tough, Like it's such a
short game where it's a lot ofthings uncontrollable, a lot of a lot
of this one error can just messup a whole game because it's you have
no time. So that's one thingI always want to work on, is
like when I do have a badgame, is figuring out how to I
(32:37):
have to flush it, which I'mnot as good at. I'll think about
it and I'll just just bester onit instead of just being like, Okay,
you got to focus on the nextgame. How about Yeah. I
think I'm just saying like, ifI did really well, I'm like in
my head thinking like, Okay,I did that well, I did that
well, and I'm super excited.But when I feel like I messed up
(32:59):
or did something to get in troubleor whatever, I'm just like think about
it. Then I'm like, okay, you know, just fix it in
the next game, and you kindof have to get it back into the
mindset of Okay, we have anothergame. This isn't the only one,
you know, all right. Sohere, we've done our business. We've
played our games, all right,we won won the whole tournament. We're
(33:20):
amazing, we did nothing wrong.Now it's the after party boom bag we
worked hard for. That's the onlyreason. No, no, no,
But it is a fun thing.We've talked about it before, like we're
social creatures and I and I andwe love to go out and meet people,
and it's this fun experience where youhave some people from all over the
(33:43):
world and you need to go hangout with them and drink with them.
I love drinking with the Irish teams, some of the British girls like it's
just a great time. I'm Iwill always go out after tournaments. There
has been some times where you haven'tgone out. Yeah. I think it
just depends on like what everybody's doing. You know. If everybody's like,
yeah, we're definitely going here andwe're gonna be dancing, it's gonna be
(34:06):
a great time. I'm like that, I got my outfit on, let's
go. But when people are likein decisively like oh we might do this
or that, and I'm like,yeah, yeah, that that night's probably
not gonna go as plan. I'mgonna stay in and see. I am
one of those I will. Ijust gotta wait. So in Sydney,
no one wanted to go out withme. It was just Doyle and I
and I was like, no,I don't know any plans but can so
(34:28):
people are like, well, justlike let me know who's there. I'm
like, I'm not letting you knowwho's there. You gotta either admit now
or you're not invited. So welike are just trying to find this place
to go. And one of thelike the one of the men's teams was
going to this club and I waslike, hello, would you have room
for one more? So I leaveDoyle I going to this club just because
I was like, I'm not gonnawaste this. My body feels like yeah,
(34:51):
for sure, but it's just amazingtime. I think one of our
funnest nights out was in Cape Town, Naya. That night was okay,
we went to a legit club.Well we started off okay, so some
of our teammates, you know,they want to kind of keep it a
little casual, but it was allof us went to this one nightclub.
(35:12):
But they were playing like not thatgood of music and it wasn't really on
the vibes, and so we wentback to the hotel. But it was
I was like to Nya and Kayla, I was like, okay, we
need to ditch these people my ownteammates. I was like, we need
to ditch them and we need tofind something fun. So I start messaging
everybody was like, where do wego? So Nya, Kayla and I
and some of the our men's teamwe go to this fun bar in this
(35:34):
like middle of camp or somewhere isin Cape Town and I mean it's packed
and we're there with some of theGolden Eagles. I mean we're just having
fun. Nia and I are justdancing. I have a great story about
Nya that I won't share on thispodcast. I don't know which one you're
talking about, so I won't evenas it was, it involves a toilet.
(36:00):
I definitely remember that. And nowI remember the pre party that you're
talking about. Yeah, that waswame. I'm like, this, ain't
it. I've never I've never laughedharder in my life than when Night and
I were in the bathroom together andcame down. Was horrible. I don't
know why that happened to me.But the rest of the night went well
after that was well. I gotMcDonald's. It was a good times about
(36:24):
that. Let's talk about that,which you're like, go to meal not
once we get back to the US, but like that night, it's the
end of the tournament, Like,what is like the meal that you're gonna
go for? I mean, you'llknow me. I'll eat pretty much anything.
But it is a cool time whereit's you feel like you can just
eat whatever you're like, I canneed a hurt, I can eat cookies.
I can eat McDonald's. I've Idown chicken nuggets at one night in
(36:47):
Cape Town. I have just poundedsome cake and cookies before. So it's
like all different, what about youkind of the same, like whatever,
we're definitely I feel like all ofus, like as soon as the tournament
sun, it's like, okay,where are we ordering from? Where are
we getting food from? So Ithink in Spain, like our thing was
the cookies and the pizza, SoI think like anywhere where they usually I
(37:14):
go with pizza because that's the safestthing to go with no matter what country
you're in. Yeah, so that'susually my go to, just to get
a nice, cheesy, greasy pepperonipizza and tear it up and go out,
or tear it up and pass out. I will tear it up and
always go out. So if youever are you if you're ever at a
tournament and you are trying to figureout where you go Hit me up.
(37:36):
I want to go out somewhere always, and you're younger than me, because
I was just like that, Listen. I was just like that. I
wanted to go out every tournament andthat was what I played from, like
I'm about to win this tournament sothat we can go out and celebrate.
And now it's like I could goout, I couldn't go out. It
wouldn't bother me because I'm just thinkingabout like the post travel, like we've
(37:59):
had our days where like that posttravel was rough? Was it worth?
No? Guys, I am thelife of the party. I was and
always will be and low you knowwhat, for now on whenever you ask
me to go out on a tournament, I'm going to go regardless of good
I want to say it or notgood. And I need you to promise
me that when we get older,and I'm saying maybe only like two years
(38:21):
from now, you make me goout even when I don't want to do.
I'm not changing it, all right, don't Okay? Okay, okay.
Well, so that is kind ofa wrap up for our discussion on
life on tour. There is alot of more things that we can talk
about. So if this is somethingthat you're you're really interested in or you
really enjoyed listening to, please alwaysreach out to us on our instagrams.
(38:45):
Your feedback is very important to us. Before we end this little combo,
we're going to get into our cubquestions. I'll start with the first one.
What is one of your funniest momentson two or low? I mean,
it has to be in that bathroomand gape down I was involsing with
laughter. Anybody asked you, youbetter that they unless they pay you and
(39:07):
then you guys split the monument,what about you? I think the funniest
has to be one year in Dubaiwhen we went and did all those excursions
and just the dune bug riding,which was terrifying. If I knew it
was gonna be like that, Iwould have never gotten the car. Like
(39:30):
the pitch that I was screaming inthat car just had everybody cracking. Yeah,
it was fun, it was,but I was terrified. That's probably
one of my funniest moments just becauseit made everybody else pee their pants.
Oh it was so great. Shewas unwell and that that ride, but
I was cracking up. What's onething you can't travel without? Um?
(39:52):
For me, it is going tobe I so am irag. Some places
when you travel to they don't haverags, and you know how important rags
are to me in my hygiene.And I'm not like one of those people
who can use like fragranted soap orlike regular hotel soap. So I always
(40:15):
have to bring my def unsted soap. Do you use the hotel shampoo and
my conditioner and I body wash.I bring my own shampooon conditioner, but
I don't even wash my hair thatmuch on tour, but I do use
the hotel soap. Okay. Whatis you're one thing you can't travel without?
(40:37):
Okay? So now recently because withTikTok, it's it's been a uniform.
I bring a uniform so that Ican make tiktoks. I hate that,
but it is now that I thinkabout it, you are you were
wearing and you're recent tiktoks the uniformthat we did not bring. Yes,
that's it because I brought it uniformto make TikTok's not yet? Well,
(40:58):
you look amazing and what's the longestplane ride you've been on? I want
to say twenty two hours? Whichone was twenty two hours? Wasn't that
the one for Australia we were onWe were on a twenty two hour plane
(41:21):
ride. I think so thanks tome, or maybe it was like twenty
two hours combined. Yeah, Ithink it's twenty two hours combined because I
don't think that maybe it was likesixteen then I think it's Dubai might be
the longest we've been on. HongKong might be long. How long do
you think that one will be?You know what? I'm just I don't
know, I'm making I making up. We don't know what is your favorite
(41:46):
tournament to go to and why?So it has now become Cape Town.
Cape Town was amazing. Yeah,it was beautiful, beautiful, The people
were amazing, the turn it wasamazing, the fans were amazing, the
after party was amazing. But Ialso do like home tournament, so like
(42:07):
Glendale or Canada because our family getscome you. I'd probably say Sydney,
Australia, like it's very similar toCalie, but times ten in terms of
like excitement and how beautiful it isand how warm it is and there's just
so many people and everybody's like justhaving a good time. Like I love
(42:30):
the vibe anytime we go to Australiaand the tournament as a whole is like
ran amazingly so many supporters and rugbyviewers that come to that tournament. So
I probably picked that one. Okay, okay, Now one question I got
was do you ever get harassed forbeing American abroad? I know I haven't
(42:53):
gotten a rass so much as it'skind of interesting people yell at us like
oh Trump, you guys are Trump, and it's like, hey, no,
yes that is that is us.But I swear or not like that.
So we do get things like that, like because people have this perception
of America right now that I don'tknow if it is the best. So
(43:15):
we do get kind of I thinkwhen it's like, oh, it's the
American team. But I think we'retrying to change that in a way as
well. Is something that I'm atleast trying to do is to show we're
trying to show what who America reallyis and who American athletes, rugby players,
people truly are. So I thinkwe might get that, or we
(43:36):
might get people ideas of what Americansare, but We're doing our best to
change it. Yeah. The mostI can think on that topic is just
like getting the dirty stairs when you'rein a country that has a different language,
of like, oh those are Americans, you know. Yeah, That's
the only thing I can think of, which I mean, considering we don't
speak anybody's language. We are literallyexpecting everybody to speak English and we're like,
(44:00):
you don't speak English and we barelyspeak English. English. We're like
to say your country, They're likehello, So that's hard us. We're
the worst. Yeah, thank youCubs so much for your questions. We'd
love to see them every episode thatwe have, so keep them coming.
The challenge for you all you cubstoday is to share this podcast with your
(44:24):
followers or your family and friends.We would really appreciate that. Thanks for
tuning in. Everyone to make sureto check us out on all platforms at
Leo's Den Underscore with Sports to stayupdated, visit with sports dot com for
the episode show notes, and followwith Sports for more conversations from the world
of women's sports, and also makesure you follow me at nya Tapper and
(44:45):
my brand page at Underscore ny onFire Underscore and also follow Low at Ilonamar
and make sure you follow her.TikTok. That's all I'm good for anymore.
Whether you came for the rugby andsave with the Shanigans, we hope
you join us again. The Leo'sdad. Bye this out, I say
it again. I'm just glad.
Peter, we go, Hay Cubs, and welcome to the Leo's Den.
My name's Nyat and I got COVIDon. My last two are in Spain.
Not funny, Hey, cubs,I'm a lone avoid teammates call me
low. And I'm getting to thatpoint in tour where I'm really just everybody's
(00:27):
getting on my last nerve, okay, and I cannot get away from anyone.
And we are two leos who lovesto hear themselves taught. So you
all know how we start off ourpodcast. We're gonna start with our Leo
horoscope. So today is April fifth, twenty twenty one, and the horoscope
(00:52):
is you can meet new friends ata social gathering Leo, people who could
become valuable business contexts. You mightlearn of new and different investment opportunities that
reflect the changing times, and theseto capture your imagination. Your understanding of
others runs deep, so relations shouldbe that's a new word. Congenial.
Congenial. I'm you're in the rightmovie to make the necessary decisions. Unhesitant,
(01:19):
unhesitatingly. Wow. I feel likeevery time we do the horoscopes,
it's kind of like a lesson it'slike like we're learning our help of bits.
Again, we don't know what thesewords. This is kind of interesting
because we were just talking about that. We were talking about like life after
Rugby and how we're going to hitup all the sources we've met through Rugby
to try to get jobs. Yeah, use the networking that we've been able
(01:44):
to get into with Rugby after whichI think it's super super important. Um
yeah, because it's it's not likeit's really not what you know, it's
who you know, and Rugby hascreated this whole social network for us,
so nan we'd be at these socialevents trying to meet everybody we can because
we need to make the big buck. Someday we need to be hired by
(02:06):
somebody lunch per. And that's funnyyou say that because I remember the conversation
we had today and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna,
you know, go to a businessmanand be like, hey, like just
teach me and I can do it. And you're like, you don't think
you need a degree, and likeyou said, I'll be not who you
know, not what you know.So yeah, So today, because we
will be talking about life on tour, a lot of people may not know
(02:32):
exactly what that means, so lowyou want to give them a little insight
into what tour exactly is for us. Yeah, so when we say tour,
we mean when we go to thesetournaments. So usually we play tournaments
all over the world. You know, we go to Dubai, Cape Town,
Sydney, New Zealand. So whenwe go on tour, we go
to these places, we spend aweek, we train there and then we
(02:53):
play in a tournament that weekend.So right now, actually we're in Dubai
for a tournament, and we gothere last Friday, I think, and
then we've been here just for aweek now training and then we played this
weekend. We're gonna play next weekendas well. And the reason we have
to go on tour is because weare a national team. So unlike the
(03:15):
NBA or the MLB or NHL,like they have teams in the US where
they can all just kind of playin the US where it's us, we
have to go and play all theother national teams from the other countries,
which I think has been amazing becausewe've been able to travel the world and
see some amazing places that we probablywould have not been able to do or
(03:39):
see if we weren't playing rugby.So that's why we have to go on
tours because most of our games areout of the country, but we do
have some in the country when wehave like big world stage games. Yeah,
and it's kind of we want toget there earlier two because there's like
massive time changes. So we goto Dubai, which is twelve hours thirteen
hours from California, so we haveto get into that times when we have
(04:01):
to get into the heat and kindof figure out the temperature and everything like
that. But it is amazing thatwe get to travel to these places and
spend a week here and we usuallyhave an off day and I mean we've
done some cool stuff on our offdays. So night, how many times
have you been to Dubai? Now, this is my third time in Dubai.
Not many people can say that.Yeah, I think it's either my
third or fourth. And like oneyear we were here, we went like
(04:25):
dune bugging and we went on camelsand we got all these four wheelers.
It was I mean, it wasjust so cool that we get to live
this life on tour. Yeah.Yeah, And just in case you didn't
know, everybody doesn't go on touron our team. So we have a
based group of about twenty five girlswho we trained with on a daily basis
(04:48):
in Ulivista, California, at ourtraining site, but for tours, only
a certain amount of girls go.It's the same as in college with basketball.
With basketball, you have like atraveling team. So that's kind of
what tour is for us, isthe traveling team going to play. So
you're specifically selected by your coach basedon performance and what you can provide for
(05:11):
the team. So how many peopleusually go on tour with us? Yes,
so we usually bring twelve, butwhen we do double header tournaments where
we go from like Dubai and thenthe next we won't play in capes,
I want to bring like fourteen orthirteen. I think what's so cool about
this is like it kind of keepsus working that we are not always making
(05:31):
the team. It doesn't make it'slike, oh, well I'll make the
team so I can. I don'thave to work as hard by having to
continuously make tour. It just meansevery practice you have to come ready to
play because you want to make thatplane, right, you want to go
on tour it, but it's notguaranteed for you. So I have like
all these people messaging me like,oh, are you gonna go to the
Olympics, And I'm like, I'mgonna really hope. I hope to go
to the Olympics. Yeah, butI need to keep working to make it
(05:54):
there, so stop jinxing me.People, And that's like a really straight
thing for them. When they hearthat, They're like, oh, your
team made it to the Olympics,and it's like, yes, my team
made it to the Olympics, butus, as individual players, we have
to get selected to travel to playon those teams. Also, a lot
(06:15):
of people probably wonder, okay forthe girls that go, like great,
they get to play, you keepit competitive by making them work to get
on the team. For the girlswho don't go, what happens. Have
you ever been one of those girlswho wasn't selected for a tournament, whether
it was for injury, performance,you were new you ever since you've been
here? Have you been to everytour? I have been to every tour
(06:38):
since I've been here. I thinkI came off. I came in right
for the France tournament, and soI was lucky in that time where he
would just take the coach would kindof take whoever. So I was like,
cool, I got to go ontour and did I know what I
was doing? No, I didn'tknow what I was doing. But now
we've kind of created this really coolculture of like, the best players are
(06:58):
going to come and you have tohave play with us and learned and you
have to be a really you haveto know our system to come on tour.
So it almost makes it this specialspot to be one of those twelve
and it's this really cool thing tostrive for. Have you not made some
tours? I think in the beginning, well, I don't know. I
(07:19):
had got cut, so there wasdefinitely that time, so you probably need
to make it the Yeah, ButI think once I got here, like
it was kind of the same situationas you, I was kind of and
everyone for the most part that Ican remember if I'm wrong, you know
whatever. But just a little moreinformation on that. For the people who
(07:40):
go, it's the traveling team,and for the people who don't go,
we call them the home team.And usually it'll be about five to ten
girls, depending on what our groupis looking like each year, and they'll
stay back with one of the extrastrength and conditioning coaches or an assistant coach
if we have one at the moment, and they'll keep on training, you
know. So because we're out here, the traveling team is out there working
(08:03):
and competing. So when we getback, we want to make sure that
the people who didn't travel the hometeam are still ready to go and you
know, compete again for a spoton the traveling team. Yeah, and
then people it's always like interesting,So we do travel to these amazing places,
but we it's our job. Ithink when people don't realize is yeah,
we get to go to Dubai,we need to go to Cape Town,
(08:24):
but it's our job. So yes, we don't have to pay for
travel and housing like that, butwe're there expected to perform, so we're
they're expected to hopefully win a medal, do well in a tournament. So
it's it is amazing to travel,but it's also this pressure of we only
have so many times in the yearwhen we do get to go on tour,
(08:46):
so this precture of really using itto our advantage and doing the best
we can. And let's get intoa little more of what traveling looks like
because there's like long plane rides,long bus rides, multiple connections. What
do you eat? What are youwearing? Let's talk about that. What
(09:07):
does our kit look like? Dowe wear kid? Do we get to
where we want? So we areCanterbury right now, so we wear all
Canterbury stuff and we sometimes have tolook trash. I love it when we
match. Do you like when wematch? Because if I had my way,
we would be matching down to ourunderwear. Okay, I love it.
(09:30):
I think I'm gonna say this first. I think you love it because
when you see a group of peoplewearing the same thing, all eyes are
on them. Yes, but Idon't know. It depends if the stuff
is comfortable, you know, great, but if it's not comfortable. I
would prefer to like wear my ownstuff because I feel like I got swaggy
(09:50):
stuff too, Like I can getindividual attention from my own outfit, the
team kit. Just the other dayat practice, our first day here at
practice, all of start in ourCanterberry like we don't have to, but
we're in our Canterbury. NiFe comesout with a Nion fire shirt and like
pink Nike shorts, and I waslike, NAO, what yeah, you
look really good. What's up,dude? Well yeah, because they were
(10:13):
like, oh, you can wearwhatever you want, I'm like, okay,
well I'm gonna say my kid forlike the kid days, because who
knows when you get laundry on tourand you always got to promote the brand.
I got my nag on fire shirton right now. Oh my goodness.
But like so when we do travelthough, when we're going we're on
the plane rides, on bus rides, we do try to match um,
just so we can like look reallyprofessional. And it's also like because our
(10:35):
sponsors, so we need to bewearing all our sponsor gear. We can't
have anything else that's not like Canterbury. We can't be wearing Nike or Adidas
something like that. We have tobe matching. And then I mean to
do buy what We had a sixteenhour plane ride, so Deacon pretty good
with long flights at this point.Do you have keys for your long flights?
(10:56):
What do you do? I reallyjust like eat, watch a movie,
pass out, repeat, repeat,repeat, I probably do the same.
I okay, this is kind ofweird, but I love airplane food
because it's so fun to like youget to know it's like a fun experience,
like what if here we go withyou again? I'm like, what
(11:20):
is this? What is this?And so I've now found KLM has some
of the best airplane food. Theydo, yeah, they have really good
food. But we have flown Emiratesbusiness class and I felt bougie as heck,
okay, that was amazing lovely.Um. One of my favorite things
about traveling is that I save money. We don't have to pay for food,
(11:43):
we don't have to pay for travel, and you're away from like the
comfort of your home to where youcould like go shopping or like go grocery
shopping, or go to the moviesor go out for dinner, and like
here it's like you can't really domuch, so you're really like saving your
money. And most of the foodwe eat is paid for and a lot
(12:07):
of the activities sometimes that we getto do are paid for. So I
think that's one of the things I'velearned to appreciate from traveling is being able
to save my money. I willsay, though, like you know,
pre COVID, when we go toplaces that our dollar is better, I
go wild. I will go wild. Like in Australia, I probably spent
five hundred dollars just at a Lululemonoutlet, okay, and then I got
(12:30):
this in Cape Town. I waslike, I was like, I'm hoping
this a calling me like giving themall my money. So it is I
actually shop more on tour than Ido at home. Yeah. Actually I
just lie because I online shop yesterdayand spent about five hundred dollars because I
was bored. So I'm like nothing. Also do so on tour. Of
(12:52):
course, we stay in the hotelseverywhere we go, and we stay with
our roommates. So for me,I always have the same roommate, my
girl Nicole. She in the background, she's making a little bit of noise.
But I always were with Nicole.But we have changed our roommates sometimes.
What about you, Nyah, Ithink my roommates have changed probably every
(13:16):
time. I don't have anybody whoI'm like, well, yeah, at
the moment, I don't have anybodywho I'm like, oh, that's who
I'm always with. It's been changing, and it changes, as we said,
because you don't know who's going togo on tour, you know,
Yeah, like the day that Nicoleor you doesn't go on tour, y'all
are going to be a freaking heartbrokenbecause of the roommates situation. Can you
knock on wood right now? Jem, thank you, No, it is
(13:41):
I was in that. I wasa roommates last year in Australia with Chris,
and then I was roommates with Kurshand I was like, Kursh,
we're not moving our beds apart.We are sleeping right next to each other
because that's what Nicole and I do, and then like the same with Chris.
So it was cool to be withother people. But I do think
at times, like you know yourroommate, and especially in these COVID times
where we can't leave our room,having a roommate that you vibe with is
(14:05):
important because that's all you're with andyou do get annoyed. Yeah, for
sure. And just for you cubslistening on. In the beginning, our
roommates were picked for us, andthen as time went on, we've started
being able to select our top threeand majority of the time you would get
(14:28):
one of those people. And nowlately we've just been kind of handling that
aspect as players on our own andpicking our own roommates so that how do
you feel about that. Do youlike how it was before or do you
love how it is now. Iguess for me it doesn't really matter because
I'm always with Nicole, so it'slike I'll be with her anyway. But
(14:50):
again, yeah, maybe it's likethere is a time when one of us
isn't on there, I'll be lost. Yeah, but hopefully it'll be okay.
But okay, So here's the thingthough, in Spain, it is
tough in COVID because you know,you have to isolate. You can't be
with people like we had to isolate, and if your roommate tests positive,
then you have to close contact.So it's like also you have to build
distrust with your roommate as well,and you have to be smart and that's
(15:13):
the only person you can really talkto because you don't want to mix and
mingle too much. So I startto lose conversation topic and I'm like,
Okay, well, I guess we'lljust talk about this now. And I
think that brings us to like theconversation of the pros and cons of having
a roommate, you know, becausewe go from being in the comfort of
our homes on a daily basis andthen coming to train and being able to
(15:35):
go back home and being in yourown space versus traveling and you're going to
training, then you're coming back andbeing with your roommate. Then you're going
to dinner and you're coming back tobe with your roommate. There's really like
no escape, you know. SoI think for me the pros of having
a roommate, because we have tohave a roommate, you know, is
(15:58):
for me, I'm not as scaredat night in the dark, Oh my
gosh, you child. I feelmore comfortable when somebody is sleeping near me,
and you get to meet new people. If you're having different roommates every
single time, you get to geta little more closer to your roommates or
get even more closer to your bestfriends in your situation. Pecked. So,
(16:22):
while we're we are on tour,we do of course train, but
we honestly don't train as much Ithink as people would think because it's like
leading up to that tournament week.It's we know we're gonna just push our
bodies to limit over the weekend,so that those five days when we get
here before a tournament, it's kindof like almost a chiller period, would
(16:45):
you agree, Like we have maybefour or three training sessions, some gym
sessions, but other than that,it's like we've done the work beforehand and
now it's just kind of refining sothat we can save our bodies for the
tournament. Yeah. I agree withyou on that. It's a lot more
chill and like going through execution andsmall individual skills just to get us excited
(17:11):
and ready for game weekend. Yeah, because I mean, if you're pounding
the body trying to figure things outbefore tournament, you're not ready. It's
like we've done the work, we'reready. We just need to kind of
go over it, maybe fine tunea little bit off upset pieces or whatnot.
But other than that, we justkind of chill, chill a little
bit. I mean, one thingfor our team is that we are constantly
(17:33):
getting coffee, at least at leastI am, but it's kind of this
fun thing that our team does isthat we're always going to these new places
and finding coffee shops, which Ilove. But you're not a coffee drinker
though, Nia, No, Idon't drink coffee. So even though we
do still train, we don't trainas much, but we have a lot
of off time and a lot oftime to get into other things when we're
(17:59):
not training. So, as Lowsaid, for our off days, a
lot of us pre COVID would goand get coffee or go and do excursions,
depending on what country you were in. Low, what was your like
go to activities to do whenever therewas an off day. I freaking love
the off days and that we hadthe opportunity to go and experience the place
(18:23):
we're in a little bit. Solike as I said, and do buy.
A couple of years ago, wewent on this amazing desert tour and
that was so fun. And thenwhen I was in Cape Town, I
hit up a friend and that I'dnever met before because I was just getting
sick of everybody out the guy Ineed to go to hang out somebody who
was on my team, and soI went hung out with her and she
took me all around Cape Town.We went to this beach and she took
me here, and it was like, I felt like I got to experience
(18:45):
Cape Town. We've done some reallycool stuff. What are some of the
co cool stuff you've done in youroff days? Anywhere where there's a beach
there, shopping, I love tolike find the exclusive shoe store and whatever
country I'm in to see what theyhave to offer, specifically Nike. Like
m London had an amazing Nike storeand I was in there for good three
(19:08):
hours and probably spent more money thanI should have. But we only get
like one off day, you know. Yeah, so you kind of gotta
really be selective with what you decideto do because we get that off day.
But you know a lot of thetimes it's like, Okay, you
got four hours to go do whatyou want, you know, versus like
a whole day. So yeah,you know what was fun? I don't
(19:32):
think you did this in Australia.But did you go to Manly Beach in
Australia? Is that where you likewe got the budget? Go? No,
we got No, I didn't goto that. So here's a little
thing about Naia. Sometimes she justlikes to chill out though yeah, just
our teammates. This is why wecan't record podcast floating through my door sometimes
(19:56):
I I just like the children room. We went to the pool they the
day. We're like, where's niceShe's like it's probably sleeping. So now
I just likes to chill But whenwe were in Australia. We went to
this place called Manly Beach and wemet up with the Budgee Smugglers guys and
they're like, hey, you guyswant to hop on our boat? And
we're like, birds, want tohop on your boat, sir. So
we all got budge Smugglers and thenwe just hopped on their boat, their
speedboat and we just went around Sydneyand Manly Beach and we were crashing through
(20:22):
the waves. We saw some seals. I mean, it was amazing,
Like we get to meet all thesepeople on tour. That's my that's my
favorite thing. Yeah, I meanI really do love like going out and
doing new things. But as yousaid, like there's some places where we've
been to so many times and it'slike, okay, I am not going
to see the Birch Khalifa again.You know. Like sometimes I'm just like
(20:47):
I just need a day to likeliterally be by myself, because I get
those days at home, you knowon the weekend. Yeah, so like
being here, especially if you havea roommate, it's like okay, they're
gonna be gone. I can kindlyhave some time to just chill, renew
my mind and just relax and alot of times, like I'll even try
to find spas in the area,like Dubai. I love going to their
(21:07):
spa Dubai. It's lovely, it'sreally nice. So everybody has a lot
of different things they're interested in doing, and they can be based on is
this your first time, it's justyour third time? You know? Naya
love self care. I love thatabout do just give her a good facial
(21:29):
give her a good massage. That'sall she wants, all right, Yeah,
so of course it's very important.So of course we do have fun
on tour, but um, andthen it comes down to game days.
So we do do two tournaments side, which means we play three fourteen minute
games off on two days, twodays of the week. So do you
have any game day rituals, anythingyou got to do before game days?
(21:52):
We usually our games start in themorning, probably sometimes it can be pretty
early. Then we'll have a bigrest period where we'll chill out. We'll
have an other game and then anotherbig rest period and then another Game's kind
of the basic setup. I thinkthe only ritual I would say is just
having a good meal the night beforeand making sure I get the sleep I
need because a lot of the timeswe are we usually have early starts to
(22:17):
our tournament day. So like sleepis like super important to me because if
not, I am a diash inthe morning and that's not good. This
is true. Do we have abeat button? We have? This is
true? I think for me onceonce our dietesition is like hey, guys,
okay, it's time to start reallygetting your carbs, and a mom
(22:37):
like, ite's ready, it's gotime, it's go tarrs. I'm like
POSSI. I remember my first tourin France. They were like, okay,
guys, start carbo loading and Iwas like, okay, cool.
So I hate like choging croissans,I was eating tarts, I was eating
baghets and I was like, no, guys, this is I'm just carbo
loading. I'm getting ready to playmy five minutes, so I'll probably play
all weekend. But that is oneof my favorite things, so it is
(23:00):
key. I'm kind of learning now. It's interesting when you talk about body
confidence and you know we've had aneating episode, but I would almost use
tours of time to like lose weightbecause we're not eating what we want to
eat. But now I'm like,no, I can't be doing this.
I need to keep my weight upbecause that's my energy source, and I
need to have the energy throughout theweekend to play six games and get up
(23:21):
for those six games. So you, I mean key is snacks? Like
you are a snack person, right, Yeah, depending on the size of
the male I have, or ifI like, you know, how you
bring snacks and then you get thereand you're like, dang, I didn't
really want that snack that I brought. Like that happens a lot for me.
So sometimes I'm just like eating biggermeals because I'm not really enjoying my
(23:41):
snacks. But sometimes I am abig snacker. Yeah yeah. And you
your sun flower seed eaters. SoI've heard from Nia's past roommates so that
they shower, get that Nia willjust lay in your bed and much on
sunflower seeds while walk is the officeor some TVs. That is a con
(24:03):
of having a roommate that you haveto feel like, uh, what is
the words super I don't know theway like you feel bad about like getting
comfortable and eating your subflossies because youknow it's like you're gonna talk about you
later. I those stories I've heard. We've heard of some people who like
(24:25):
Jordan and Mia or roommates once.I guess in Sydney, and I guess
Jordan woke up to like crinkling paper. It's over there eating like chopping on
a pop tart. I mean,I get that with Nicole too. She
has to wake up. She's she'sbeen eating bars and I'm like, oh,
hello, what time is it.She's like, I'm hungry. I'm
like, okay, some of usare sleeping. Hey, guys, we'll
(24:48):
be right back after this commercial break. So and then on game days,
do you have any like snacks youeat? I love beef jerky and probably
like apple sauce and the little energyChoose delicious. Yeah, I'm I'm a
(25:10):
peanut butter person myself. Banana pretzels, Oh gosh, I love pretzels.
Um Energy choose as well. Ijust kind of eat them like their gushers,
you know, no purpose. Yeah, let's talk to them a little
bit about what like a game daywould look like, you know. So,
(25:32):
um, usually let's let's talk aboutI guess last week, so we
had to wake up at five am, five thirty thirty am for me,
because I like to play it close. Um, and from there, like
we have to weigh in and Ithink, um, I was wondering,
(25:53):
like why don't we have to weighin so much? But I think most
of it is just to make surethat we're hydrated, right, Yes,
that's that's key. We wait inconstantly throughout game days. We waited in
the morning, We wait before everygame and right after every game just to
see if you're staying with your waterand you're you're staying hydrated, because that
is key, yeah, especially outhere in hot Ad Dubai. But so
(26:15):
we go way in and then weusually head to breakfast. We kind of
talked to in the last podcast aboutwhat a meal on tour looks like for
us, specifically for breakfast, andthen we'll head up, grab our bags,
and we get on the bus andhead to the stadium. And then
we do something called the primer.So it's not a practice just yet,
(26:37):
but it's like it's really a primerto get our body going. So it's
like we'll involve bandwork, some someeasy stretches, some movements and passing just
to get the body ready to reallyhit it. So we do a primer
a little bit before and then wejust kind of chill in our locker room
for a little bit and then tapingstarts, and so you know, all
of us with our glass angles,we got to get our ankles taped by
the best athletic train of there isa cool to miss. So we get
(27:00):
her ankles taped and she's a leo. Yes, that's why she's so amazing.
Yeah, and then we it's alot of like kind of waiting.
So it's this time of like youhave you don't want to be doing too
much because you're going to be playingstand. So it's waiting. It's getting
yourself psyched. I write in ajournal, sometimes I write in my phone
when I want to do I'll watchover some clips. What do you do?
(27:23):
I'm usually like stretching, doing somedeep rom water band stretching, just
to make sure my legs are looseand ready to run fast. I see,
I see you over there in thecorner. Sometimes she's working the band
and putting her knee up to herchest or some stuff like that. Very
flexible. I'll go do some stuff. I like listening to music. Do
you listen to music? Like,do you have a certain so you listen
(27:45):
to that gets you pumped. No, I can usually shuffle through like my
whole Spotify, and the vibe isalways different. Sometimes I'm listening to like
slow IR and B music that Ican sing too, and then other times
I'm listening to like hip hop musicto get me hyped. So it just
depends on the day and it's time, yeah, And then we have a
(28:06):
fifteen minute role and we take alight up which is going to be like
amino acids and some electro lights,just to get us going. And we
always played the song shots by LittleJohn because we have to shoot shoot it
like a shot, so it's likeshot shot shot shot shot sh ups,
and it's this fun thing really getsus going. And then we'll usually go
over some film of the other teamand what we need to do to this
game, and then have a littlebit of time left, and then we
(28:29):
go out for warm up. Yeah, And then in the warm up,
it's about what ten to fifteen minutes, we're kind of going through regular A
skip B skip that type of stuff, doing some running build ups, and
then we do a small segment ofcontact to get our shoulders ready, and
we do kind of a run throughof our set pieces and then you know,
(28:55):
we get our gatorade. Lately we'vebeen getting our pd Light pop stick
to keep us rated. And thenwe head to the tunnel and that's kind
of where the aurora is and you'relike getting hyped and ready and you're in
there with the other team that you'regonna go against, and um. One
thing that we usually do is wesay, uh, well, Jordan will
(29:18):
do her weird sound. We're gonnahave to have like a little sirenired to
everybody. Yeah. I get toeverybody hype and ready to go. And
once we get the que that it'sgame time, you're run out and do
our business, you know. Ye. Now do you get stressed the tunnel?
Sometimes I just get Even though Ido this all the time, it's
my job playing sevens, I getso nervous. Sometimes we could be playing,
(29:44):
you know, a pretty lower seedteam and I'm out there ready to
poop my pants because I'm so nervous. What about you? Um, not
so much. I mainly Scott andNia. Oh my god. I don't
want to seem like I'm like neverscared of anything or never unconfident or anything.
But in those situations, I'm justin the mindset of okay, like
(30:07):
I'm here and whatever it will be, it's gonna be, so like,
you know, let's just go anddo what the plan that is already set
in life. Just go do that, so you know, And most of
the time I'm trying to catch mybreath from the warm up. So I
feel like that's why I get toonervousness, because the warm up will make
me so tired and I'm like,yeah, how am I going to do
(30:27):
this? I'm breathing heavy from doingone lap. One of the things that
we forgot to talk about that isvery important in our game day is our
game day packing list, because wenot only packed to come to the tournament,
but we also packed to go tothe stadium as well. Um,
you want to talk a little bitabout that. Low. I mean,
(30:48):
it's all all the normal stuff.You gotta have your cleats, mouthguards,
you're shorts, you're jersey, youryour tank top, your socks, snacks.
Is there is there anything random thatyou always have to bring and you're
packing back to the stadium. Idon't think so. I think I'm pretty
(31:11):
boring. What about you? Probablymy chapstick and my my airplane pillow and
my covers, doesn't case I wantto take a little nappy no matter where
I go. Yeah, okay,um, I think I just kind of
bring the regular stuff and I prettymuch just wear it all day long.
Just all the rules, all therules, and then after games, I
(31:34):
mean it's pretty simple. We comeafter games, we immediately kind of break
it down. Then we do ourlegs up, belly breathing for a little
bit, and then we way outand we'll have our protein shakes, and
then we kind of just we doour shout outs, which I think is
really fun as we shout out whatpeople did in the game so well,
I'll be like, shout out toNya for that amazing run up the wing,
(31:55):
shout out to Abby for that aerios. It's kind of a cool thing
to like bring to light the goodthings we did before we probably talked about
whatever we messed up. Yeah.Yeah, And do you ever feel like
tension in the room after, whetherit's for you, for yourself or for
the team as a whole, basedon like what the results of the previous
(32:15):
game were. For sure, Imean it's tough, Like it's such a
short game where it's a lot ofthings uncontrollable, a lot of a lot
of this one error can just messup a whole game because it's you have
no time. So that's one thingI always want to work on, is
like when I do have a badgame, is figuring out how to I
(32:37):
have to flush it, which I'mnot as good at. I'll think about
it and I'll just just bester onit instead of just being like, Okay,
you got to focus on the nextgame. How about Yeah. I
think I'm just saying like, ifI did really well, I'm like in
my head thinking like, Okay,I did that well, I did that
well, and I'm super excited.But when I feel like I messed up
(32:59):
or did something to get in troubleor whatever, I'm just like think about
it. Then I'm like, okay, you know, just fix it in
the next game, and you kindof have to get it back into the
mindset of Okay, we have anothergame. This isn't the only one,
you know, all right. Sohere, we've done our business. We've
played our games, all right,we won won the whole tournament. We're
(33:20):
amazing, we did nothing wrong.Now it's the after party boom bag we
worked hard for. That's the onlyreason. No, no, no,
But it is a fun thing.We've talked about it before, like we're
social creatures and I and I andwe love to go out and meet people,
and it's this fun experience where youhave some people from all over the
(33:43):
world and you need to go hangout with them and drink with them.
I love drinking with the Irish teams, some of the British girls like it's
just a great time. I'm Iwill always go out after tournaments. There
has been some times where you haven'tgone out. Yeah. I think it
just depends on like what everybody's doing. You know. If everybody's like,
yeah, we're definitely going here andwe're gonna be dancing, it's gonna be
(34:06):
a great time. I'm like that, I got my outfit on, let's
go. But when people are likein decisively like oh we might do this
or that, and I'm like,yeah, yeah, that that night's probably
not gonna go as plan. I'mgonna stay in and see. I am
one of those I will. Ijust gotta wait. So in Sydney,
no one wanted to go out withme. It was just Doyle and I
and I was like, no,I don't know any plans but can so
(34:28):
people are like, well, justlike let me know who's there. I'm
like, I'm not letting you knowwho's there. You gotta either admit now
or you're not invited. So welike are just trying to find this place
to go. And one of thelike the one of the men's teams was
going to this club and I waslike, hello, would you have room
for one more? So I leaveDoyle I going to this club just because
I was like, I'm not gonnawaste this. My body feels like yeah,
(34:51):
for sure, but it's just amazingtime. I think one of our
funnest nights out was in Cape Town, Naya. That night was okay,
we went to a legit club.Well we started off okay, so some
of our teammates, you know,they want to kind of keep it a
little casual, but it was allof us went to this one nightclub.
(35:12):
But they were playing like not thatgood of music and it wasn't really on
the vibes, and so we wentback to the hotel. But it was
I was like to Nya and Kayla, I was like, okay, we
need to ditch these people my ownteammates. I was like, we need
to ditch them and we need tofind something fun. So I start messaging
everybody was like, where do wego? So Nya, Kayla and I
and some of the our men's teamwe go to this fun bar in this
(35:34):
like middle of camp or somewhere isin Cape Town and I mean it's packed
and we're there with some of theGolden Eagles. I mean we're just having
fun. Nia and I are justdancing. I have a great story about
Nya that I won't share on thispodcast. I don't know which one you're
talking about, so I won't evenas it was, it involves a toilet.
(36:00):
I definitely remember that. And nowI remember the pre party that you're
talking about. Yeah, that waswame. I'm like, this, ain't
it. I've never I've never laughedharder in my life than when Night and
I were in the bathroom together andcame down. Was horrible. I don't
know why that happened to me.But the rest of the night went well
after that was well. I gotMcDonald's. It was a good times about
(36:24):
that. Let's talk about that,which you're like, go to meal not
once we get back to the US, but like that night, it's the
end of the tournament, Like,what is like the meal that you're gonna
go for? I mean, you'llknow me. I'll eat pretty much anything.
But it is a cool time whereit's you feel like you can just
eat whatever you're like, I canneed a hurt, I can eat cookies.
I can eat McDonald's. I've Idown chicken nuggets at one night in
(36:47):
Cape Town. I have just poundedsome cake and cookies before. So it's
like all different, what about youkind of the same, like whatever,
we're definitely I feel like all ofus, like as soon as the tournament
sun, it's like, okay,where are we ordering from? Where are
we getting food from? So Ithink in Spain, like our thing was
the cookies and the pizza, SoI think like anywhere where they usually I
(37:14):
go with pizza because that's the safestthing to go with no matter what country
you're in. Yeah, so that'susually my go to, just to get
a nice, cheesy, greasy pepperonipizza and tear it up and go out,
or tear it up and pass out. I will tear it up and
always go out. So if youever are you if you're ever at a
tournament and you are trying to figureout where you go Hit me up.
(37:36):
I want to go out somewhere always, and you're younger than me, because
I was just like that, Listen. I was just like that. I
wanted to go out every tournament andthat was what I played from, like
I'm about to win this tournament sothat we can go out and celebrate.
And now it's like I could goout, I couldn't go out. It
wouldn't bother me because I'm just thinkingabout like the post travel, like we've
(37:59):
had our days where like that posttravel was rough? Was it worth?
No? Guys, I am thelife of the party. I was and
always will be and low you knowwhat, for now on whenever you ask
me to go out on a tournament, I'm going to go regardless of good
I want to say it or notgood. And I need you to promise
me that when we get older,and I'm saying maybe only like two years
(38:21):
from now, you make me goout even when I don't want to do.
I'm not changing it, all right, don't Okay? Okay, okay.
Well, so that is kind ofa wrap up for our discussion on
life on tour. There is alot of more things that we can talk
about. So if this is somethingthat you're you're really interested in or you
really enjoyed listening to, please alwaysreach out to us on our instagrams.
(38:45):
Your feedback is very important to us. Before we end this little combo,
we're going to get into our cubquestions. I'll start with the first one.
What is one of your funniest momentson two or low? I mean,
it has to be in that bathroomand gape down I was involsing with
laughter. Anybody asked you, youbetter that they unless they pay you and
(39:07):
then you guys split the monument,what about you? I think the funniest
has to be one year in Dubaiwhen we went and did all those excursions
and just the dune bug riding,which was terrifying. If I knew it
was gonna be like that, Iwould have never gotten the car. Like
(39:30):
the pitch that I was screaming inthat car just had everybody cracking. Yeah,
it was fun, it was,but I was terrified. That's probably
one of my funniest moments just becauseit made everybody else pee their pants.
Oh it was so great. Shewas unwell and that that ride, but
I was cracking up. What's onething you can't travel without? Um?
(39:52):
For me, it is going tobe I so am irag. Some places
when you travel to they don't haverags, and you know how important rags
are to me in my hygiene.And I'm not like one of those people
who can use like fragranted soap orlike regular hotel soap. So I always
(40:15):
have to bring my def unsted soap. Do you use the hotel shampoo and
my conditioner and I body wash.I bring my own shampooon conditioner, but
I don't even wash my hair thatmuch on tour, but I do use
the hotel soap. Okay. Whatis you're one thing you can't travel without?
(40:37):
Okay? So now recently because withTikTok, it's it's been a uniform.
I bring a uniform so that Ican make tiktoks. I hate that,
but it is now that I thinkabout it, you are you were
wearing and you're recent tiktoks the uniformthat we did not bring. Yes,
that's it because I brought it uniformto make TikTok's not yet? Well,
(40:58):
you look amazing and what's the longestplane ride you've been on? I want
to say twenty two hours? Whichone was twenty two hours? Wasn't that
the one for Australia we were onWe were on a twenty two hour plane
(41:21):
ride. I think so thanks tome, or maybe it was like twenty
two hours combined. Yeah, Ithink it's twenty two hours combined because I
don't think that maybe it was likesixteen then I think it's Dubai might be
the longest we've been on. HongKong might be long. How long do
you think that one will be?You know what? I'm just I don't
know, I'm making I making up. We don't know what is your favorite
(41:46):
tournament to go to and why?So it has now become Cape Town.
Cape Town was amazing. Yeah,it was beautiful, beautiful, The people
were amazing, the turn it wasamazing, the fans were amazing, the
after party was amazing. But Ialso do like home tournament, so like
(42:07):
Glendale or Canada because our family getscome you. I'd probably say Sydney,
Australia, like it's very similar toCalie, but times ten in terms of
like excitement and how beautiful it isand how warm it is and there's just
so many people and everybody's like justhaving a good time. Like I love
(42:30):
the vibe anytime we go to Australiaand the tournament as a whole is like
ran amazingly so many supporters and rugbyviewers that come to that tournament. So
I probably picked that one. Okay, okay, Now one question I got
was do you ever get harassed forbeing American abroad? I know I haven't
(42:53):
gotten a rass so much as it'skind of interesting people yell at us like
oh Trump, you guys are Trump, and it's like, hey, no,
yes that is that is us.But I swear or not like that.
So we do get things like that, like because people have this perception
of America right now that I don'tknow if it is the best. So
(43:15):
we do get kind of I thinkwhen it's like, oh, it's the
American team. But I think we'retrying to change that in a way as
well. Is something that I'm atleast trying to do is to show we're
trying to show what who America reallyis and who American athletes, rugby players,
people truly are. So I thinkwe might get that, or we
(43:36):
might get people ideas of what Americansare, but We're doing our best to
change it. Yeah. The mostI can think on that topic is just
like getting the dirty stairs when you'rein a country that has a different language,
of like, oh those are Americans, you know. Yeah, That's
the only thing I can think of, which I mean, considering we don't
speak anybody's language. We are literallyexpecting everybody to speak English and we're like,
(44:00):
you don't speak English and we barelyspeak English. English. We're like
to say your country, They're likehello, So that's hard us. We're
the worst. Yeah, thank youCubs so much for your questions. We'd
love to see them every episode thatwe have, so keep them coming.
The challenge for you all you cubstoday is to share this podcast with your
(44:24):
followers or your family and friends.We would really appreciate that. Thanks for
tuning in. Everyone to make sureto check us out on all platforms at
Leo's Den Underscore with Sports to stayupdated, visit with sports dot com for
the episode show notes, and followwith Sports for more conversations from the world
of women's sports, and also makesure you follow me at nya Tapper and
(44:45):
my brand page at Underscore ny onFire Underscore and also follow Low at Ilonamar
and make sure you follow her.TikTok. That's all I'm good for anymore.
Whether you came for the rugby andsave with the Shanigans, we hope
you join us again. The Leo'sdad. Bye this out, I say
it again. I'm just glad.
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