Pink, Hoarse, Dehydrated and Lovin' it!!

It only took one request, and a day later, a beautifully written piece about our rugby weekend!! Thanks Mattie!

As this will probably be our last spring in Hong Kong we decided to try a day at the biggest party of the year, the Hong Kong Rugby 7's. It's a three day seven-a-side international rugby tournament with teams from as far apart as Tunisia, Russia, Tonga, Kenya and our local Hong Kong heroes.

The partying is legendary and the rugby pretty amazing too. The diehards had been there from the start on Friday and on SUnday morning while they slept off their hangovers we crept into the stadium at 8am to get the best seats in the house, right in the corner by the try line at pitch-side. The local traditions of downing jugs of Pimms and pitchers of Heinecken were duly respected and we also tried most of the greasy stadium food on offer but at the same time trying desperately to minimise the use of the the toilets where men sweating beer stood four deep trying to push forward to use the trough!

And what about the rugby? We started watching the mini-rugby when we arrived, some tiny 7 and 8 year olds playing full-contact rugby with impressive gusto, those kids were rucking for the ball just as if they were determinedly snatching toys from a sibling, maybe that's how they practice.

The pros came on later in the morning and some of the uneven match-ups of the morning provided a great showcase for the incredible ball-handling skills of the Pacific Islanders but it was the later matches when the top teams came head to head that provided the most memorable games. Full of huge impacts, mazy running and smooth as silk passing moves we were on our feet screaming out our support for most of the afternoon.

The top game for me was seeing Fiji line up against New Zealand, those guys played as if the opponents had taken their families hostage and it was hard to believe some of them actually left the field in one piece. The final try of the game was a work of art, all Fijian players touched the ball at least twice and it was capped off by Wai'sale Serevi breaking free from the Kiwi defence then twirling the ball on his fingers as he ran over the try line to score, incredible. Serevi played his first HK Sevens tournament in 1988 so we probably won't see him for too many years to come but to see him run in a try just a few metres from where we were sitting was worth the ticket price, he really is the Wayne Gretzky/Michael Jordan/Pele of his sport.