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JANUARY 2005 I can honestly say
that I have seen Rugby at its finest and that is the Asian Rugby
Football Union Under 19 tournament I attended in Kunming China in
December. The city of Kunming The poor old Rugby League diehards would be frothing at the mouth to see the 12 countries competing at the tournament. An article by Spiro Zavros in Rugby Heaven said that League was played in Queensland, NSW, 2 suburbs of Auckland, Papua New Guinea, 2 counties in England and 6 clubs in France. Here I was in Kunming watching the likes of Arabian Gulf, India, China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei play really good exciting Rugby. This years Under 19 tournament will be even bigger with 14 countries competing in Lahore Pakistan. The Singapore matches are listed in the articles above we had a good win against Arabian Gulf, then Japan put a big score on us but our lads played well. We lost our playmaker Daniel Chia in the Japan match, with him I am sure the narrow loss to Chinese Taipei would have been a win. Our last game against Thailand was a narrow win for us and we finished up a respectable 7th out of 12 teams. The Super 12 kicked off on the weekend and the Waratahs and Brumbies got good wins. Interesting see the NSW press muted in their praise of the Waratahs they would usually have them winning the Super 12 after a first round win, but after all the disappointing years they were very quite. Brumbies as usual did the business with no fuss, they are hard to beat at Canberra. Queenslands loss to the Hurricanes at home does not bode well for the rest of the season; they are looking at a bottom 3 finish again. The Reds have really become a soulless outfit lacking passion and pride, teams used to dread coming to Ballymore, they would get bashed from pillar to post. Unfortunately in the post Connolly era, a trip to the local pre-school is more frightening then fronting the Reds at home. The 6 nations is huge
here in Singapore with ESPN showing all the games. Good to see Ireland
and Wales lining up for a last round clash that could decide the
Championship. Ex-Waratahs coach Matt
Ossie I am sorry I did not catch up in Oz but I was in Coffs Harbour most of the time and yes I missed most people so my apologies. Bruce the closest I got to Brisbane was Coff’s so thanks for the invitation maybe next year. To all the gang in Coff’s thanks for your great hospitality once again. Stormin Norman pulled a swifty on me tricking me in to drive to Armidale to pick up his car. But he made up for it with his usual hospitality and truckloads of Kava. Ossie and Doug I have been promising shirts for 12 months, I know a disgrace, will send shortly. I have attached a new Talent Identification Format in the Coaching Resources section; check it out. Email Matt Ryan at bubbaemu@hotmail.com Regards |
is the site of the Chinese High Altitude Training Camp, it is an
amazing place about 6,000 feet above sea level in South West China on
the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The Under 19 ARFU Tournament was held
in the Training Camp and though it resembled Stalag 13 we certainly
had a good time.