Players will tour local schools and communities as part of the four-day tour and rookie Cameron Shenton said he was looking forward to spreading the AFL message across the Tasman.
“The Bayside is our heartland but we also want to reach out to other communities and hopefully we can be the number one (AFL team of choice) in New Zealand,” Shenton said.
A contingent of ten players headed to Wellington on Tuesday morning, participating in a light training session at Hutt Park before getting a bite to eat on the waterfront café precinct.
“We’ve still got a few training sessions this week – we just trained today and we’ll train on Thursday and Friday,” he said.
“Today we just did a bit of mobility after sitting on the plane for three hours and then we went out and had a few kicks, handballs.”
It’s the first time Shenton, 23, has visited New Zealand and his initial impressions of St Kilda’s home away from home are good.
“It’s my first time in New Zealand and it’s very windy here in Wellington, I guess that’s why they call it the windy city, but the scenery is really nice and I’m looking forward to experiencing everything over here.”
The players were also joined by international scholarship holder, Joe Baker-Thomas, who will make a permanent move to Melbourne at the conclusion of the trip.
