good times, good friends, good grief

It has taken a week but I have survived the end of most of my rugby season.  For me it all hit the apex last weekend when I tucked away my playing kit and went into full fledged supporter gear.  The US women's team flew in for the HK women's sevens which I took time from work to attend.  It was my first time seeing them in action here because they didn't attend for the last couple of years.  A couple of the women from the world cup 15's play for the sevens team and there a a few old timers that are my age although they don't look like me.  These women are fit!  I have seen one of the ladies on the national scene for what may now be a decade and she is still one of the fastest runners and hardest tacklers on the pitch.

The women suffer from the misfortune of limited funding and support.  They had only trained together once in the past four months which may have hurt them in their match against Canada, who they had beat in Vegas, but this time Canada took a convincing victory and went on the win the tournament.  I was very sad about this having lost my own domestic grand final in double overtime. It would have been nice to see my team win everything but seeing them at all made me happy.  I find that I miss fellow Americans the most when it comes to sports.  Three seasons later I still struggle with the way my HK teammates think it is perfectly normal to scream at each other and engage in nasty behavior toward the opposition.  Off the pitch they are a warm and close knit group of friends but on the pitch is another story.  I believe I am just as competitive but I just don't feel the need to make enemies with all the other teams when beating them is plenty good.  It was nice to spend time with a group of elite athletes who support each other in a positive way.

 

The ladies get into the spirit.

 BTW she caught that ball and managed to pass it