I asked around for someone to write an article about this year’s Manila 10’s and no-one volunteered. Like, NO-ONE! It’s usually difficult to get people to write stuff anyway, but this subject had an incredible alcoholic haze surrounding it. People who are normally verbose and outspoken just went “Duuuuuh….”  Like, what ever happened had been erased from everybody’s memory banks - except that it left a huge pleasant afterglow that just made everyone want to do it all again next year. I guess I shouldn’t complain then. What we do know is that this year was GREAT….….. and that next will be even BIGGER and BETTER.

One thing I do know from this year is that SINGAPORE BARBARIANS won the Cup Competition. This and all the other results are on the Nomads Manila 10’s website at www.manila10s.com . So it must be true! They beat the Black Watch 17 -5 in a hard fought final. The Black Watch put up a good show and they never gave up. They are a British Army side composed mainly of Fijian nationals who have been recruited in the Armed Forces. They are just back from serving in Afghanistan  - so they know all about tough conditions! In the Plate Championship Kowloon beat the Taipei Baboons 45-17. Again a fairly convincing win – but then Kowloon is one of the top sides in Hong Kong. In the Bowl the HKFC Scorpions first team beat the Seoul Survivors 24-12. And finally, in the Shield, Bahrain beat the Tequila Mockingbirds by 14-5. So that’s the facts, ma’am just the facts.

Great to have the Valley boys in town!

The conditions were soft underfoot as it had been raining all week. So the going was heavy and the ball was slippy but that did not deter the Nomads from playing one of the best games of 15’s rugby seen for many years on the Merville turf.

Considering that the opposition is one of the top sides in Hong Kong, having been the Champion Club in the HK leagues for many years – and that it including a few Hong Kong representative players – the Nomads team can be proud of the result. At half time Nomads were only down 2 points with the score at 14 -12. Two tries each but one missed conversion by Nomads. The final score at 32 - 12 after 80 minutes of tough rugby was a great result - and not the runaway victory for Valley that some pundits had predicted.