Macau Beach Rugby Tournament 2001

8 September 2001

This tournament was played on a 25m x 20m sand pitch (Same as a beach volleyball court) with 5 players a 'side so it was a new experience for all the Shekou boys and probably most of the other teams (except Macau who had been training on the pitch for months). 

Apart from the strange conditions and format the tournament turned out to be a lot of fun and brought some limited success for the Shekou team. 

Arriving fresh off the ferry/taxi/taxi we were kitted up just in time to take the field against a well organised Macau team.  Shekou shaking off the effects of Friday night (plus the pre match tonic) and completely unorganised were no match for Macau who ran out winners by approx 5 tries to 0*.

Next up were the Guangzhou Rams who had only managed to bring the minimum 5 players.  The Shekou boys had shaken off a few cobwebs by this time and started to play more as a team, in a good physical match we ended up winning by 5 tries to 2*.

The next game saw Shekou take on a team from Kowloon who had arrived almost straight from the pub by helicopter.  In the first half Shekou played some good rugby and at the turn were 2 - 1 up, however the better organised Kowloon team lifted their game in the 2nd half to run out winners by 5 tries to 3*

Our last group game was to be against the Macau Barbarians, however they awarded us the match as they were eager to start post tournament festivities and were unlikely to improve their group standing.  This led to us being scheduled to play a 3rd/4th place decider against Guangzhou who also awarded us a walkover result (exhaustion plus the fact that Shekou had provided players during their group games).  Therefore Shekou Rugby finished the tournament in 3rd place.

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