The last three days saw Reds and Wallabies superstars James O’Connor and Lukhan Salakai-Loto travel up to Townsville and their surrounding regions as a part of the Reds to Regions program. Both players were billited together with two rugby mad families, one in Charters Towers and one in Burdekin. The boys stayed with the McKellar Family in the Towers, before staying with the Gallego Family in the Burdekin. A big thank you to both families for their generous hospitality.
James and Lukhan arrived in Townsville on Monday night before travelling out to Charters Towers to greet their host family, the McKellar’s. After spending the night, the McKellar’s gave James and Luhkan a quick tour of Charters Towers before they went to Dave Thomas Oval to run a clinic. During the clinic James and Lukhan passed down their knowledge on a variety of skills, including: kicking, tackling & breakdown. Following this the Bulls juniors were able to ask a few hard hitting questions, get a photo and grab a signature from the players.
Following the clinic in Charters Towers, the team said their goodbyes before departing for the Burdekin, where the TDRU Development staff along with James and Lukhan were going to run an afternoon clinic for their club kids. Much like in Charters Towers, the Junior Canetoads underwent a similar drills and skills session. Following this, there was an opportunity to interact with the Burdekin rugby community before meeting their second host family – the Gallegos.
Wednesday morning saw James and Lukhan head back to Townsville bright and early where they joined the team from Legacy to head around and do some charity work. Following this the boys helped run a clinic at Mike Carney Toyota Park for all junior kids within Townsville, running them through their paces with the assistance of the TDRU development team.
