The Legend of Lou Ferris

COL Spence won’t betray the Tour Secrets Act – what went on tour will stay forever on tour. But he does reveal that the bus trips home from Sydney with the women were the equivalent of anything that he’d ever done with the men of Canberra Royals RUFC.

There was the sight of 25 Royals players lined up along the Lake George ripping off ‘brown-eyes’ to passing cars and laughing their heads off.

There was a trip home when they’d run out of grog by the Southern Highlands and took over the Berrima Hotel, the juke box and pool table, as locals watched goggle-eyed.

At another pub on the NSW south coast that had a large fishing club, Louise Ferris took a giant set of shark’s jaws off the wall and wore them like a very dangerous necklace.

One afternoon at Norths Rugby Club in St Leonards on Sydney’s lower north shore, the women were challenged to a boat race by the Shoremen.

Two crews of eight. The women of Canberra Royals versus the best of Northern Suburbs RFC. “It was neck and neck right up until the last two drinkers,” Spence says. “Our anchor was Louise Ferris. She has five brothers and no throat. The beer just went straight down – swoosh. We won in a canter. She tipped the schooner glass on her head. Not a bloody drop. The pub roared.” 

Spence says the women loved rugby for all its parts. The game, the friendships, the parties. “It was all part of the complete rugby experience. They loved it for the same reason anybody does. “The licensed club used to quake in its boots for us to arrive back there after the bus trip. They’d been on the piss for a few hours. We’d get back about midnight, and if the club wasn’t rocking before we got there, it certainly was when they turned up,” Spence says.