HK7s - 2008

NEW ZEALAND WINS THE CUP!!! DAMMIT!!!

And here's the story of the Entire HK7s Weekend as I saw it:

Thursday Night:

It's HK7 Eve. Wan Chai crawls with hordes of beefy boofheads in rugby jerseys from 24 nations; bar owners rub gleeful hands and d

elighted Mama-sams field three times the usual numbers of winsy little Filippino prossies! You know, the usual for this time of year!

Friday Night:

Very cross with myself. That's what happens when you're selfless.

See, ABC:PI said he had one spare ticket for the entire weekend and access to more and I said "Well, give the one you've got to David (David A is a guy from Fiji who lives in HK and had never been to a game) and I'll have one of the next lot of spares you get." ... and ABC never got any more spares.

So, that meant a long weekend at Devil's Advocate where they have giant TV screens and a live-action feed from the stadium.

They also have lots of alcohol.

Here's how Saturday went down:

Australia v Hong Kong - 26 to 17, and dammit if we (that's we meaning we Hong Kongers) didn't play quite well. It almost looked like we had them there for a while. I felt so proud of us.

Kenya v China - 47 to 0. It was a humilating defeat for our Northern Brethren, sure, but, hard as

it is to believe, there were several occasions when China didn't look too awful. Still have faith that one day, in a generation or so, China will be able to play.

Fiji v Korea - 42 to 7. Reminded me of 2006, when, for a brief heady moment, it looked like Madagascar was going to beat Fiji; the Koreans scored first, and then effortlessly Fiji geared it up. I think we (that's Fiji we this time) do it for courtesy: don't make the little guys look too bad!

And, hey, can you imagine if North Korea ever fielded a team?; they'd be so worried about what Kim Jong Il would do to them if they lost, it'd be a game worth watching.

South Africa v Japan - 40 to 7. Despite the devastating defeat, Japan never for a second looked bad. I tell you, Asia will be a force in Rugby, but not yet.

Samoa v Sri Lanka - 28 to 12. And Samoa's five best players are out because of injuries too. Oh, don't we wish this happened last year.

New Zealand v Taiwan - didn't even bother to record this score, but it was something like 55 to 0. Our (that's our meaning Fiji our) very own Serevi The Sorcerer, now retired from playing, coached the Taiwanese team too but it didn't save them for a second.

Tonga v France - 7 to 21. What on earth happened to our (that our is a Fiji our) Eastern Brethern! I mean, the FROGS beat them! Cringe!

Darling and charming Froggy supporters doing the rounds in Wan Chai!

Scotland v Portugal - 34 to 7. All going as expected so I nipped out for dinner. Didn't want to watch the next game either. Yawn! Foregone conclusion! Don't like seeing the dreadful dawning horror on the faces of the players when Minnows realise just how bad they really are.

Wales v Zimbabwe - 34 to 5.

Argentina v Russia - Although I wanted to see this game, I didn't get back in time. I know Argentina won by a huge margin but I don't know what!

England v Canada - 24 to 12.

USA v Tunisia - 26 to 21. It was close, close, close, and for a while there it looked like Tunisia had them.

But let's look at this logically: when a team like Tunisia - Tunisia! for chrissake! - gives you a run for your money, you can understand why the Yanks don't let any other countries enter into their World Series!!!

And that's it for Day One. More tomorrow.

Saturday Night:

All over for the play-offs. Big games tomorrow. Fun hordes streaming into Wan Chai as we speak. (Please note my artistically blurred photograph ... and I wasn't even wearing my glasses.)

Anyway, to the Games:

Teams playing for the Cup tomorrow: It's the usual suspects plus one surprise: New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Australia, England, South Africa, Wales and Kenya. Yup, Kenya! Damn, they're playing well.

As for how the games went down:

Tonga v HK - 56 to 5. No comment. OK, one comment: Pacific Islanders know how to treat their host. Wasn't it kind of Tonga to make HK look good in front of their home audience, even if just for a moment.

Scotland v China - 12 to 19. Does your jaw gape? No, seriously, look again. China - China! - beat Scotland. And it was such a good game. Sharp learning curve, Chinese!

Wales v Korea - 34 to 5.

Agentina v Japan - 19 to 5.

England vs Sri Lanka - 47 to 7.

Look, there are 24 teams and I really can't be bothered typing it all out, so just the highlights:

1) China beat Scotland! No wait, I already told you that. But so good, I'll tell you once more. China beat Scotland! China beat Scotland. China beat Scotland. I can't get over it myself.

2) Yeah, yeah, Fiji won all their games while politely giving each other team a try of their very own, except for one game; I don't remember which. Probably the Kenyans, since those guys are such great athletes you'd be foolish to give them anything.

3) Tunisia can play! Damn, they were good and they kept getting better each game. Trounced the Taiwanese 66 to 5. And even against the Kiwis, when they were truly trounced (38 to 0), they never once looked like flopping wet fish. Again with the sharp learning curve.

And have to tell you, Tunisians are odd-looking Africans! Definitely not African and not even

Arabic in looks. In fact, these guys look more like black-skinned Greeks. Found it curious that they were too Hellenic-looking to be fully African, and then remembered that in ancient times Tunisia was called Carthage, and these were the self-same dudes who rode their elephants across the Alps and destroyed Rome ... and then-and-there decided that Hannibal and co had kick-arse genetic material since it's still there for all to see over two thousand years later. Mmm, wonder if that means Carthagians would have made great Rugby players?

5) From what we witnessed today, Serevi is one hell'va lousy coach. He had Taiwan for months and yet everyone walked over them big-time. And did he care? Well, if he did, we didn't see a second of it. Even during half-time, he'd saunter out to his players and then make jokes with the water-girls.

We had a great round-table discussion about this at Devil's Advocate and decided that the truly gifted make lousy teachers simply because, for them, it all operates at a semi-mystical level and

comes so effortlessly, and thus they can neither explain nor transmit how they do it. Better teachers are those, we all opined, who have hard-won skills, learnt in an easily replicable step-by-step way.

6) And how cool is this? Hong Kong tied - 21 to 21 - with France. Yup, lil' ol' us! Froggy-eaters ... well, almost!

7) Australia very nearly got its arse kicked by Tonga! It was touch-and-go until the very last second and then Australia scored.

8) Samoa v England was the best game to date. Just magic.

Will go now to see if I can figure out how to put photos in here. If you see them, well, then I succeeded. If you don't ...

You see them! Yay! See you tomorrow.

(The first of the 7s revellers arrive in Wan Chai. Please note our gorgeous MTR.)

Sunday Night:

Cup Results: New Zealand beat South Africa, 26 to 12.

Plate Results: France beat Argentina, 17 to 14

Bowl Results: Russia beat Zimbabwe, by heaps and heaps, but didn't write it down. Too depressing.

Fiji? Knocked out in the Semi-Finals by the Kiwis. And I won't tell you what they beat us by b

ecause that's throat-cutting. And no, I don't want to talk about it.

In fact, I don't want to talk about anything. See you later.

Tuesday Morning:

Taken me two days to get over Fiji's humiliating defeat, but I'm back.

Summing up:

Gorgeous weekend. So sorry I didn't get to any of the games, but ... no, I was selfless and David A. went in my stead and he had a great time and I'm very happy about that. (Don't you love it when I'm sanctimonious!) and I'm really happy for the Kiwis who are playing so well at the moment and really deserved to win. (And when I'm lying through clenched teeth!)

And here's The Big News: in South China Morning Post, the story is that Fiji de-magnitised the stadium and, for the first time ever, North Stand was the place to be.

(SCMP forbids the use of their photographs in blogs, but you have to see the Fijian supporters in their silly blue wigs, so here's a photograph obviously taken by me of the image - and how can they object to that!)

Let me summarise from the article:

"The usually quiet and reserved North Stand partied hard all weekend ... by Sunday ... people in fancy dress were reserving seats for friends in the North Stand after "digging the happening atmosphere on Saturday ..." "A colourful crew of 22 Fijians, who have been coming to HK for the Tournament for 11 years, were given the credit for making North the place to be."

Then the article has quotes from Selila Koroi and Naomi Roberts, with the added comments that they passed around word about the big, big bonus of the North Stand: it's right in front of where the players warm up before each game, doing sit-ups and stretches: "the bulging biceps and lycra body suits of the players ... (we see) a great show from the players and I'm not talking about the ones playing." and "they are so hot, so hot, so hot."

Bloody Fijians, ay!!! Can't take us anywhere!

And there's also an article about how many sets of twins played in this tournament: dozens of them from across many nations, it seems. And I'd like to point out another set of twins no one's yet spotted: Kiwi Coach Gordon Tiertjens and French Coach Thierry Janeczek. You check it out and tell me that those two aren't separated-at-birth twins. (As soon as I learn how to download from the newspaper I'll put up photos and you can see for yourself!)

As for us, back in Lockhart Road, watching all on a giant screen, we had a fabulous time and we met some gorgeous people from a great many countries. Actually, I'll tell you about one since this is so interesting: absolutely the best looking man I've ever laid eyes on, Alex from Argentina.

No, I'll wind up the story of the weekend, and then tell you.

So that's it. All over for 2008. Great fun. Great games. Great heartbreak. And Keith swears blind that this year he'll pay his dues at one of HK's Rugby Clubs so we can get tickets for next year.

(Will add many photos to this when I learn how.)

See you in the North Stand in 2009!!!!

ALEX FROM ARGENTINA'S STORY:

Alex, right?, is six four and unspeakably gorgeous in that lean Teutonic way, and between games we start chatting (gosh, the Argentinian accent is yummy) and I say to him "How come you're a blue-eyed blond and you're from Argentina?" and he says "How come you've got white skin and come from Fiji?" and it's such a good point I shut up for a while, but dammit if my mind isn't ticking over along sinister lines.

And then, being me, I can't help myself and say "Whereabouts in Argentina are you from?" and he says "I live in Buenos Aires but I'm originally from Villa General Belsiana" BINGO!!!! Knew it, knew it, knew it!!!!! So I say "That's where all the escaped Nazis went to! Are you an escaped Nazi?" and astonishingly he says "No, but my grandfather was!"

He's so charming and gorgeous and nice, I go for it and ask the most impossibly rude questions, like: "What are Villa General Belsiana and Bariloche (the other escaped-Nazi stronghold) really like? Is it all Odess-stye Secret Societies, and Master Race Breeding Programs, and secret goose-stepping and 'heil hitlering', and scientists in dark labs attempting to clone Hitler?" and he's laughing uproariously and eventually says "No, they are both very tolerant places with a significant proportion of Jewish, Irish and Italian families." and then he tells me lots of great stories to illustrate what lovely places these are, and concludes by saying "Losing the war really took the wind out of the Nazi sails and, as far as I know, they all gave it up." and even later "There's been a lot of intermarriage in both towns. My own mother is a Catholic from Ireland." ...

... and that's when we switched over to talking about the religious problems in Ireland, and I get no more stories about Nazi strongholds in Argentina.

And, dammit, even if Alex isn't from some Master Race Breeding Program, he's gorgeous enough to be ... and since we're talking about a man who's seriously, seriously gorgeous and charming and intelligent and nice, I'm finding it hard to really see anything wrong with that. Hell, I'd even breed with him myself. And, what the heck, it wouldn't even have to be breeding.

And it wasn't until afterwards that I remembered that my very own great-grandfather, Julius Burkhardt, was an Argentinian-German - although he left there in about 1890 - and so I should know firsthand that there were Germans in Argentina before WWII and therefore I shouldn't be so convinced that every German from Argentina is descended from Nazis ... but it's so cool that I didn't remember this in time and thus got such a lot of first-hand good stories from someone who was descended from an escaped Nazi ... and there are not too many people, I imagine, who could say that.