The USA Rugby South Panthers Rugby Academy will be touring New Zealand in 2024 and there is still room for players who want to attend.

The tour is slated for June and will last 12 days. It will include coaching sessions with coaches from the Auckland Rugby Union, Wellington Rugby Unoion, and Canterbury Rugby Union, exposing players to some of the best rugby coaches in the world. 

In between there will be three match days, and also the opportunity to see major rugby matches (the All Blacks schedule isn’t out yet but an All Blacks test match is hoped for).

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Added to that will be cultural and natural excursions, such as the Willowbank Kiwi House, the seal colony at Kaikoura, a Te Puia Cultural evening, and tours of New Zealands biggest cities.

The tour itself is priced at $1,995 per person (which includes hotels, meals, and in-country transportation). Those attending will also need to purchase their own flight to Auckland.

“It’s a reasonable price point,” said Panther Rugby Academy President Mark Williams. “It’s important to have a full tour. When you go that far you need to see more than rugby clubhouses, so we’ve got a pretty good mix of rugby and other things. And there are so many things outside of the games to experience. Rugby is so welcoming and one of the things we want is for the players to experience of being in a rugby country. Rugby is a common bond around the world and American kids are sometimes really surprised at the extent to which that is true.”