SB has been playing for the Bad News Bears Rams on and off for four years, two years back in the mid nineties, and now more recently. They won their game against Kowloon 17-3. The team was quite happy about this and many of them turned up to celebrate at Carnegie's later in the evening. Simi, their captain/coach was as jolly as I had ever seen him. He told me that they had not won in THREE years. I may have misheard him but I suspect not. Anyway, it was delightful to see them so happy and confident. The Chinese boys sometimes get bullied by other, larger, whiter back lines and this time they ran around the stunned Kowloon boys for two of the three tries.
Our team won both of our games. Yes, you heard me correctly. We played twice. We had a 15s match against Valley and a 10s match against Revolution. Our coach arranged it so that he tried not to play the same people for most of both matches. I was only supposed to prop later in the second half of the Valley game (I think) but took up locking after an injury within 25 minutes or so. I switched from lock to front row for the 10s match so I could wear out all those other muscle groups.
Valley was by far the largest team we have encountered but we were not overwhelmed by their size. Their big lock ran through some tackles in the first few plays of the game but she was eventually worn down due to the fact that most plays involved her and our forwards, especially those brilliant loosies, are fearless. I enjoyed this game a lot even if we had a very narrow victory. They scored late in the game to bring themselves within a try or so of us. Ugh. I am worried that we need to rein in our discipline. Even though he was dead wrong in his call, we didn't need to mouth off to the ref and concede thirty meters before handing Valley the first try. I am glad that we settled down later and played as a team. And I am sorry that the ref pulled his hammy although we miraculously reduced our penalty count to only a handful after he left and another one stepped in.
I had really, really wanted to watch the men's game because it seemed as though they felt good about their preparation for this game. It would have been great to watch but we had to play at the same time against Revolution. Our coach had begged them to postpone but they disagreed. The next ref told me that he would be delighted to play at an earlier time slot but their captain told me that they needed the practice time. Considering that it was an hour and a half before the game when I approached her I would say that this was very unlikely. How much warm up do you need in the sweltering heat? In hindsight I realize that we asked them too many times to change the match and they probably thought that there was some advantage to the time slot, like perhaps we didn't have a full team. The ref did tattle to me later that they thought we were tired and falling apart after our earlier game...but shouldn't that have made it more advantageous to take us on earlier before we could rest? Anyway, the result was that we missed our men's historical win so that we could beat revolution 7 or 8 (the ref forgot the number, heh) tries to two. I wore the same kit in sweltering heat from when I put it on at 1 pm to when I ripped most of it off at the sidelines immediately after the game at 7:20 pm. By 8 pm when I arrived home I was on an empty tank: sore, stiff, missing skin from my fingers, elbows, and knees (thanks to the rock-hard THT pitch), very low on electrolytes and feeling it, and with a raging headache.
I also had a sore throat. I thought that I was sick again but SB also had a sore throat and we are not often sick together. Usually he brings something lovely home to me and I get sick two weeks later. He also experienced symptoms that sounded suspiciously like exercise induced asthma. He has never suffered asthma before and when I put it all together I have great reason to suspect that we had a bit on environmental air poisoning. Ah, the fresh air of Hong Kong! It makes me wonder what my lungs look like.
Our team won both of our games. Yes, you heard me correctly. We played twice. We had a 15s match against Valley and a 10s match against Revolution. Our coach arranged it so that he tried not to play the same people for most of both matches. I was only supposed to prop later in the second half of the Valley game (I think) but took up locking after an injury within 25 minutes or so. I switched from lock to front row for the 10s match so I could wear out all those other muscle groups.
Valley was by far the largest team we have encountered but we were not overwhelmed by their size. Their big lock ran through some tackles in the first few plays of the game but she was eventually worn down due to the fact that most plays involved her and our forwards, especially those brilliant loosies, are fearless. I enjoyed this game a lot even if we had a very narrow victory. They scored late in the game to bring themselves within a try or so of us. Ugh. I am worried that we need to rein in our discipline. Even though he was dead wrong in his call, we didn't need to mouth off to the ref and concede thirty meters before handing Valley the first try. I am glad that we settled down later and played as a team. And I am sorry that the ref pulled his hammy although we miraculously reduced our penalty count to only a handful after he left and another one stepped in.
I had really, really wanted to watch the men's game because it seemed as though they felt good about their preparation for this game. It would have been great to watch but we had to play at the same time against Revolution. Our coach had begged them to postpone but they disagreed. The next ref told me that he would be delighted to play at an earlier time slot but their captain told me that they needed the practice time. Considering that it was an hour and a half before the game when I approached her I would say that this was very unlikely. How much warm up do you need in the sweltering heat? In hindsight I realize that we asked them too many times to change the match and they probably thought that there was some advantage to the time slot, like perhaps we didn't have a full team. The ref did tattle to me later that they thought we were tired and falling apart after our earlier game...but shouldn't that have made it more advantageous to take us on earlier before we could rest? Anyway, the result was that we missed our men's historical win so that we could beat revolution 7 or 8 (the ref forgot the number, heh) tries to two. I wore the same kit in sweltering heat from when I put it on at 1 pm to when I ripped most of it off at the sidelines immediately after the game at 7:20 pm. By 8 pm when I arrived home I was on an empty tank: sore, stiff, missing skin from my fingers, elbows, and knees (thanks to the rock-hard THT pitch), very low on electrolytes and feeling it, and with a raging headache.
I also had a sore throat. I thought that I was sick again but SB also had a sore throat and we are not often sick together. Usually he brings something lovely home to me and I get sick two weeks later. He also experienced symptoms that sounded suspiciously like exercise induced asthma. He has never suffered asthma before and when I put it all together I have great reason to suspect that we had a bit on environmental air poisoning. Ah, the fresh air of Hong Kong! It makes me wonder what my lungs look like.
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