Archive for March, 2009

But match after curiously exciting match, the Fiji team proved both to themselves and the crowd everywhere that these boys had promise, and it was after finally defeating Kenya in the semi finals that I was starting to feel the familiar stirrings of hope, nervousness and a slight itching for grog to calm the inevitable finals nerves down.

While there wasn’t any grog around (I lie, there was grog, just no one to drink it with), there was plenty of emotion and yelling firsthand, as Fiji went into the finals against the South Africans. All doubts as to whether our guys would be struck by the dreaded ‘finals jitters’ were laid to rest when we blazed ahead in the first half with 19 points on the board. SA managed 2 tries towards the end of the first half, with the gap just wide enough to allow us to breath into the break, as well as be on the edge, since we were still within range.

The second half started off more brutal, with SA out for blood. But Fiji managed to hold their own and fight back, with a surprising half run, half stagger score from Burotu. SA seemed to be on the losing side of nerves, with alot of missed tackles and a few dropped balls, but Fiji looked anything but nervous. Ironically, I think it was this zeal for a win that resulted in the sin bin for both Roko (who planted a foot into a tackle) and Goneva (shouldered a SA player – looked more like a bump to me). Those sin bins cost us two tries to SA, who edged the points to 24-26, with a conversion needed to take the game into over-time. I was calling on all the old gods of Fiji and whatever voodoo incantations that I could remember from Magic 101 when it was the conversion attempt, and this time, I wasn’t disappointed. Dazel misses the difficult kick from the sideline, and in doing so, cemented Fiji’s position as the Hong Kong winners for 2009.

In between the games, a promo was running with questions relating to rugby sevens, and one of them was, “when was the last time Fiji won the Hong Kong Sevens?” Too long ago, was my reply. And in winning this tournament, it has indeed been too long since our country last cheered in unison at our rugby boys, representing our beloved country overseas. Fireworks were fired into the night after the game, and for once, Fiji felt like the old days, where everyone would go to sleep satisfied that their country has once again defended its pride on the sevens stage.