Alright, so I decided it was finally time to get a handle on the All Blacks 2024 schedule. You know how it is, you want to plan ahead, maybe see if you can catch a game, or just generally be in the loop. It’s always a bit of a thing trying to get it all in one place nice and early.
My Hunt for the Info
First thing I did, I went looking online. My usual first stop is the official All Blacks site. Sometimes they’re pretty quick, other times, well, you gotta dig. This time, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Some info was there, but not everything all collated neatly, you know?
So, then I started checking out some of the major sports news sites. The ones that usually cover rugby pretty intensely. They often have bits and pieces, maybe an announcement about a tour here, or a confirmation of a home series there. It’s rarely all in one spot, especially early on. It’s like piecing together a puzzle sometimes.
I spent a good while, maybe an hour or so, just clicking around, opening tabs, cross-referencing. You find a date here, an opponent there. Sometimes the venues are confirmed, sometimes they’re still “TBC” which is always a bit annoying, but what can you do?
Putting It All Together
Once I felt I had scraped together enough credible bits, I decided to actually compile it. I’m pretty old school with some things, so I just opened up a simple text document. No fancy spreadsheets or apps for this, not initially anyway. I just wanted the raw data down.
I started listing them out. I went for a simple format:
- Date: Pretty crucial, that one.
- Opponent: Who are they playing?
- Venue: Where’s the showdown?
- Competition/Series: Is it The Rugby Championship, a Bledisloe Cup match, or one of the end-of-year tour games?
I went through all my notes and open tabs, carefully typing in each fixture I could confirm. If a detail was missing, like a specific stadium, I’d just put a placeholder or a note to myself to check back later. It’s a bit tedious, this part, but you gotta do it right if you want a reliable list.
I found a few early season games, then the main Rugby Championship block, and then the fixtures for the tour later in the year. It started to take shape, which was pretty satisfying, I gotta say.
The Final (For Now) List
So, after all that, I had my own working document. It’s not super pretty, just a plain text list, but it’s got what I need. I can see the flow of the season, which teams they’re up against, and roughly when and where.
For example, I’ve got entries looking something like:
July – vs England (Test 1) – Dunedin
July – vs England (Test 2) – Auckland
August – vs Argentina (Rugby Championship) – Wellington
…and so on. I filled in what I could find. There are always a few gaps this early, or things that might change, but it’s a solid starting point.
It’s handy to have it all in one place, my own curated version. Now I can actually start thinking about which games I really want to focus on. It felt good to get it done, just a practical little task to make life a bit easier for a rugby fan like me. And that’s pretty much how I got my All Blacks 2024 schedule sorted for now!
