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What do you know? The Taiwan 7's national squad actually showed up and played us last weekend! Just to refresh your mind, their coach contacted me two or three weeks prior to HK 7's wanting to play practice matches against us... Unfortunately for "financial" reasons, they could not get enough "bus fare" and therefore had to cancel the arrangement... WTF... Anyway, this time on game day, in typical Baboons’ fashion, it was us who kept them waiting for a good 20 minutes after the supposed kick-off time... and Evan the ref was on time this time! I was panicking a little, especially after a couple of late withdrawals but in the ended we were OK with numbers.
I got to say the condition wasn't favourable for running rugby - the early morning rain which turned a few patches of the field into mud pools, the wind got up a bit and there was also the dust storm from the "blasted" Commie land - but we managed to play 4 very enjoyable (but incredibly tiring for us) 7's matches within 2 hours and in good, sporting spirit.
Overall, tactically speaking, we played this game like crap because we had no choice but to stick with what we know better - 15's. Needless to say, the Taiwan team took us apart clinically and were a model of efficiency when they decided to get to the break down early and organising the defensive line up. It was also evident that they were not coming at us 100% when making contact and occasionally after making a line break and they will slow down to create rucks and mauls – I guess they just wanted to practice different things in a game situation. They all looked like they were not trying very hard but we were definitely running our arses off... No body kept the score as it was obvious who is going to win (yeah... it was that bad) however, every Boon thoroughly enjoyed the beating and I am sure this will be some experience that won’t be easily forgotten for those who took part.
Below are some “memorable” and “not so memorable” things that happened:
- During the first game, R2 got his rib injured in very first tackle of the game within the very first minute. That's 2 games in a row that he is hurt while playing in the Boons’ shirt - very unlucky. Subsequently he successfully “confiscated” a pair of standard Taiwan representative team issue shorts from the tackler!
- Tacklers of the day: 1) Milo - for showing anyone the consequence of making a hospital pass - absolutely cut the Taiwanese player in half and put him down for a few minutes  2) Graham - for taking out his own team mate's (Barry) knee... 
- Worst tackler of the day: Max – and he may have done his right shoulder in while tackling someone who of course broke through  . In good ANZAC spirit and to keep him company, I have to admit I was side stepped a couple of times too. Guess it can happen to the best of us
- We did not manage to cross the line once during the first and second game (although we were close on 3 or 4 occasions) but as soon as Tristan came on for the 3rd and 4th game, he scored a try in each! What a machine!
- Hank was robbed a try when the replacement player (for the poor fellow Milo put down) simply trotted onto the field before the injured man got off. Consequently, he got really p***ed off and barged through and scored from a tap penalty 5m out soon after.
- Did Sausage say something that Filipe was hitching a ride on the back of one of the Taiwanese reps? Must’ve been a special tackle he learnt while he was in Brazil!
- In my opinion, although having played only 2 out of 4 games, Tristan is my player of the day. He didn’t miss too many tackles and was able to break the line himself of create line breaks more often than when he was not playing, and also the 2 brilliant tries he got.
That is all for now and I hope you enjoy the report. I will up load the pictures later when I get my Sony camera cord back... Why don't they make the connectors the same? Oh, it makes the task of money grabbing easier...
Kiwi Eric |
