Designated Correspondant for HK7s

I've been asked to update on what's happening for Fijians NOT in HK this weekend.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Well, Kai Loma, it's 3.00 pm Friday, and the gates open at 4.  I'm running late and so counting on Alisi-the-Well-Organised to get in there first and claim our usual seats in the West Stand. Go Alisi!

Alisi! 

Last year!

This sainted lady arrives early and drapes Fiji flags over the West Stand's front rows of seats ... right next to where the players come off the field so we can get autographs.

All the Kai Viti and Kai Loma race to grab these West Stand seats, although the naughty ladies always sit in the North Stand ...

... so they can watch the players do their warm-up stretches. Can't take us anywhere, ay?

Spot the Fijians!

Have to leave shortly because it's proving impossible to get taxis if you're wearing your rugby colours.  Man, those taxi drivers. They boycott us! Three years now!

 Taxis at the Stadium.
Some suitably tricky folk get lucky.

If you're wondering why they hate us, it's because, three years ago, the bloody English supporters (aka hooligans!) had a competition to see who could vomit the most in a HK taxi and now all the drivers want payback on all obvious rugby fans.  Cheesh! Get over it you guys!

It means you should leave very early to catch the tram and then trudge up Caroline Hill - good to do because there are all these elderly Chinese flag sellers on the way - or trick the taxis into stopping by covering up your clothes and stashing your flags for the journey.

Off now, and will update tonight.  However, you'll have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for me to post the photos up on Piccassa.  (I'll paste up the link so you can go in and take the ones you want.)

FRIDAY NIGHT

Isa gang!  Too tired to write much.  Good day. The only bad thing was the 40% more corporate boxes than in the past so there's hardly any room for "real people".

East Stand

See how the corporate boxes used to be only the middle tiers but now they've taken up nearly all the bottom tiers on both the West and East Stands so the only place we can sit these days is up in the top tier and in the South and North Stands where you can't see the play properly.

And the other thing that wasn't good was the prices for food and drink.  Met my friend Angus ...

... the waiter from one of my usual haunts and I paid him what I regularly pay and he was most ashamed to tell me the price was nearly double.  However, he did say he'll make up for it with freebies next time we meet away from the stadium.

Apart from that, it was non-stop fun. Fiji couldn't get it's usual place in the West Stand because of the corporate boxes but we dominated the North Stand:

Go Fiji Go!

The only Friday game we played was against "Minnows" Thailand and it was a massacre.

Double-click to see the score.

The only score the Thai got was spectacular; a run down the entire length of the field and a touchdown ... but the Fijians were with them all the way and just "girly touching" the shoulder of the Thai guy doing the run, like they were letting him know that they could take him down anytime they chose ... only they weren't choosing.

Apart from that, Samoa slaughtered Italy, NZ murdered Taiwan, Australia stomped all over China, Kenya beat up South Korea and England trounced Hong Kong, which was really mean because they could have let us get a try. Just one. Just like all the other Giant teams did to their little guy opponents.

Evenly matched games were Argentina vs Russia (A. won in the end) USA beat Portugal but it was close, Wales finally beat Japan in the last few minutes, France beat Scotland by one try or something.

And, can you believe it, Canada beat Tonga.  Canada beat Tonga!

That was a big dramatic game.  Here's what happened:

He didn't move for ages.

For the longest time we thought they'd killed a Tongan.  For ages, the game stopped but, as he was being stretchered off, he started to move ...

... amid cheers, roaring and clapping from the stands.

And then there was the women's finals: Australia vs China:  it was a brutal walk-over.  Talk about mad-cheering and yelling yourself hoarse. Nice revenge, I thought, for the Howard Stern/Rio Tinto trial currently underway in China.

Here's me trying to be all arty and vengeful during the prize-giving:

Note the Australian flag 
above the Chinese.

Try taking a photo with 
those in the other hand!

And then, very shortly after,  downstairs on the concourse, I bumped into the losing China team:

 Feeling like winners just being there!

These fabulous girls were so thrilled to be at the 7s they were doing the rounds of the stadium to get a feel for the atmosphere. And just being in HK meant so much to them.  They were just the sweetest darlings I felt terribly mean and heartless that I'd been so wildly cheering against them. See that's the problem with wanting revenge; it works so well in your head but seldom translates well into real life.

At that stage, the day was almost over. We left just as Zimbabwe was jumping all over South Africa. Sad to miss it (turns out South Africa got it together and won decisively so it would have been amazing) but you have to sneak off early in order to escape the mass exodus on Caroline Hill.

Oh, and here's something cute.  The sweetheart little boy behind us, sitting quietly with his parents, was wistfully watching the naughty boys around him trying to throw paper planes between the goal posts, so Christine suggested he try it and gave him cardboard to make a plane.  And he did and threw it and immediately got pounced on by a security guard who thought he was responsible for all of them, and even though the guard was very nice - they've had niceness training this year in preparation - the little cutie-pie was just so humiliated he slunk back to his seat all tiny and ashamed. Since it was our fault he got in trouble, I called the guard back and asked him to pose with the boy for a picture.  This was it:

Good friends!

The little boy was completely thrilled and from then on called us "Aunty" and kept offering us food and drink. Cute, la!

So that was Day One.  Sorry I didn't record the scores or the rest of the important stuff, but if you want to know you can google for the results.

And below us, on Lockhart Road, the party continues:

One drink and we escaped the boozy crush.  Tomorrow is another day and we're in it for the long haul so have to pace ourselves.

SATURDAY NIGHT

Sorry gang, again too tired to write much at all.

Here's the scoreboard so you can figure it out for yourselves:

Big photo so you can read it.
But double-click if you want 
to see it bigger.

And something weird happened to my camera for over an hour - but then it righted itself again - so the funnest part of a terrific day is all strange colours, but you can work out what's happening anyway:

In the pink.

All the drunk teenagers invading the pitch at half time, with the security officers chasing them and looking foolish and all the while knowing, because we were told many times over the tannoy, that anyone who did it would be arrested.  Drunken teenagers, ay! Should do a post of them on the concourse getting steadily drunker over the course of each day.

All up, it was an amazing day, with Fiji slaughtering Portugal and USA each in turn, with the victory over USA being particularly gratifying as it was done with only six men on the team after Roko was yellow carded and Fiji penalised.

And I couldn't get over Roko's behaviour.  Only last year he was so sweet and humble but this year? Did you see? First he spear-tackles the American - and that's banned because it kills people - and then, when he was rightfully sent off, he throws a bottle of water at the camera filming his walk of shame. It took only one year from Sweetheart to Total Celebrity Monster.

I just hope it wasn't our sweet honey-pie whose camera got splashed:

Fiji's good friends

in the HK press corps.

But nonetheless, temper tantrums aside, it's looking good for our chances for the cup.

Yayyy! Go Fiji.

And congratulations to Alisi for managing to again score such great seats in her usual place:

No corporate boxes are 

a match for A Determined Alisi.

Oh, and there was another 'dead Tongan' on the field today.  This has always been one of the world's great teams and yet this year they're all keeling over and staying down at the smallest tackle.

Stands to reason they're losing to everyone this year, even the lowliest.  Went to join the Tongans for their first game yesterday so I could yell myself hoarse on their behalf but I quickly had to slink away so I didn't witness their shame.  And I avoided them for every game thereafter.  Something not-good is afoot in Tongan rugby.

But that's good news for Fiji.

Yayyyy! Go Fiji!

  

SUNDAY NIGHT

Congratulations Samoa on winning the tournament.

 Prize giving!

And a genuine congratulations to Hong Kong for winning the Plate:

Go HK!

MONDAY MORNING

Genuinely too tired to write last night.  Still am. And I'm hoarse. Will tell you all only not today.

However, guess who we met?  Since you'll never believe me, check this out:

The great man himself.

Wasale Serevi!

It was the most enormous thrill. So unexpected.  We were just about to leave the stadium after everything was over and just saw him walking towards us.  Isa! Unbelievable, ay?  I just grabbed him and whoa! Total colo! Blathering on about how amazing he was etc, etc, etc.

Keith too was beside himself with pleasure. (And please note that Keith is being very treacherous and wearing an All Blacks T-shirt.  He does things like that, especially when he's hanging out with the Fiji supporters.) And Blue Beauty is Mere Hudson from Yacata Island.  I know because Merlyn Jamieson told me when I proudly posted this photo at a Fiji website.  We'd never met Mere until this moment but, as she was leaving the stadium, she saw us talking to Wasale and dashed over all breathless and excited and even more colo than me, asking for a photo with him as proof. And then she dragged him off to meet her friends so she has more proof than she ever needed.

And I'll have to tell you something about something so shocking that I have to have proof before you believe scandalous information I intend to impart:

Did you know Treacherous Levuka cheers for anyone:

 Japan.

And this was when they 

were playing HK too.

Talk about dissing your hosts. 

 Taiwan.

 USA.

And this is only a small selection of the photos I could show you. Whatever happened to being all partisan and biased like we right-minded folks!

TUESDAY MORNING

Hong Kong is overjoyed at our Plate victory.  Front page stuff even in the Chinese newspapers. Of course, we all know that the Plate is awarded to the best of all the third ranked teams but HK isn't being told that and everyone is so very excited Samoa's Cup Victory isn't getting much of a look-in. Front page, sure, but winsy little photos down at the bottom, placed so it looks like the Cup is lower or equally ranked with the Plate.

But who can blame us for spruiking this up as seriously big news because is that this is the first year we've even won more than one game - must be the training camp those nice All Blacks set up for us - and also the first time the general public has even known about HK7s.

In the past, this wonderful Tournament/Party was really "Gweilo Ghetto" stuff - something strange Foreign Devils got up to once a year - but not any more. Everyone knows and is so proud that Hong Kong invented a game the entire world loves, and there are even elderly Chinese who bring chairs out onto Caroline Hill to watch the passing parade of fancy-dressed partying-hordes on their way down to Wan Chai or Lan Kwai Fong to keep the party going.

 We make the evening's entertainment.

And the upshot of this now being common knowledge is that you no longer feel like a total idiot the further you get from the stadium.  In the past, you got so stared at with such total incomprehension, you quickly tried to hail a taxi to get off the street:

 Mind you, seriously,  
away from the stadium
 how silly is this.

 Or this.

Or this.

 Or this.

 Or this.

Actually, this one is dangerous.

Now, however, this year, the sillier your costume, the more likely you are to have Mainland Chinese pouncing on you, wanting to get photos.

"Hey, don't leave me you guys!" 

he kept shouting at his increasingly distant friends.

And even International Tourists who'd never heard of the HK7s wanted photos.

American guy get's into the 7s.

Or is it just a 7s supporter.

I really should be telling you about the games and who beat who, but I won't.  Google if you want serious reporting.  I'm just talking about the stuff you won't see elsewhere.

Oh, and here's something you most likely won't read elsewhere.  Everyone boo-ed the French this year because they were behaving horribly and there was a massive punch-up during the French vs Portugal game, with the French starting it.

And other insider news is that this year the Australians were hardly boo-ed at all.  As you know, there's been a long tradition of boo-ing the Oz team - 17 years, I've now learned - because they used to "sledge" the other teams, which they stopped doing when they were told it wasn't in the spirit of the game, but HK has never forgiven them ... although it appears that they might be starting to, especially if the French are to be the future recipients. 

Yayyyy!

Oh and another piece of seriously good insider news is that, on Friday, they tried to change the 7s 'between matches' unofficial singalong theme song "Ooooh Baby, Ugh Augh!" to something else more melodious and modern, and everyone didn't let it happen and kept singing "Ooooh Baby, Ugh Augh!" over the top of the other song ... and by Saturday "Ooooh Baby, Ugh Augh!" was reinstated.

Go People Power!

So that's it for another year.  I will be posting a few more times on this year's 7 - drunk teenagers on the concourse for example - but that'll be it for 2010.

So Kai Viti and Kai Loma, vinaka vaka levu for a fantastic time, and Moce Muda for another year. 

See you next year.