It’s finally here people. It’s taken the rugby boys 6 weeks to get over their epic rugby tour to Laos for the Vientiane 10s – here’s a tour report from our Club’s youngest Frenchman, Aurelien Potier.
Friday 28th of January 2011
5:30p.m, it is time to stop staring at the excel file and drop the pen…Laos is coming. You have to be steady: Socks – check, shorts – check, boots – check, gold jersey – check, passport – check. Jump into the MRT for the train station and have a huge KFC, do not forget French fries. Now we are ready.
At 7:00p.m everyone is on time. Belly distributes the train tickets, Kook is in deep negotiations with his future girlfriend as to why she should allow him to tour, Munn delivers a load of beer and Ting tries to persuade everyone to eat donuts. Everyone checks to make sure they have everything… (Belly something to say?).
7:05p.m and our train departs, as we try to find our seats between the lost backpackers and ladyboy train stewards. First beers are opened and the long story of our journey begins…
After Lord arrived and a few more beers in the aisle we decided to move into a better place to start hostilities. We rapidly eliminated the fact we could sit in the “restaurant-bar-nightclub”. Thankfully we had our two Thai bargainers (Sod and Lord) who negotiated a narrow but not less comfortable back restaurant aisle. Beer after beer, and buffalo after buffalo, the time came to stop disturbing 1st class passengers and go to our side of the train.
On our way back from the restaurant, the train stopped at a station, and from nowhere we heard someone shouting like a Thai monkey. Unfortunately it was our kiwi (Munn) who during the train stoppage, ran out of the wagon, and with a bit of impulsion tried to get in by climbing through the window…a long silence followed in the food car during this strange moment, but we didn’t try to understand why he did it…he is a kiwi, this explains a lot of things.
Saturday 29th of January 2011
After a tough night between snoring and alcohol vapours we arrived at the terminus. As everyone checked they had everything to cross the border, Belly discovered something not so good…our captain, mastermind of the trip, forgot his passport. I was sick at heart that we were forced to live without our GM, and kept going toward the Laos frontier.
After less than 10 minutes in Laos, we found that people there eat eggs with foetus inside. Delicious. A few minutes later, we were in Vientiane, the smallest capital in the world, but nevertheless very distinguished as they eat French bread and croissant!
It was with pleasure that we found our bed and were able to enjoy 45 min of rest before start the comp! Darrel, Richie, Kitah, and Patricia (o) flew down the day before and enjoyed a nice night in Vientiane. They were fresh and ready to start the first match obviously before everyone…pffff no team spirit, we are a team, we travel as a team!
2:00p.m Kick off for our first match. As in 2009, the match against the Wild Hogs was very tough and full of emotion, where Kook got a red card, condemning any chance for him to run in the gold jersey the rest of the weekend. Hard to accept, but that is the reality when you punch someone in the face. A strong defence, an explosive attack and a very good team spirit, lead the group to the first victory of the day.
At the end of the day, we had only one guy injured, our national Thai Kiwi and cat lover, Munn. With one small scratch on his little tow…unfortunately he was off for the competition.
6:00p.m and we were back to the hotel tired but happy to hang out for another crazy night with all the teammates. No time to rest, we had a quick shower, suited up in our green club shirts and were back into the streets to reach a nice “Vientiane roof top bar” (about 4 floors high) with a very nice view over the Mekong. Some guys ate Hamburgers in the bar, while others ate spicy local flavours on the pavement, very famous in the city.
Full of sticky rice, Papaya salad, and grilled chicken, we were ready to start the Kangaroo Court hostilities. Richie set up a complete list of crimes for the fine session, with no-one forgotten. Belly got fined for arriving late, flying in from Bangkok after going home from the Vientiane border earlier that day to pick up his passport in Bangkok. Kook and Oze, the youngest of the tourney, were nominated beer bitches.
After several whiskey drenched tampons were dispatched, often for no reason, everyone started to have a nice sensation but thought about a possible headache for the coming morning.
It was time to move. Two tuk tuks were requisitioned to move from bar to bar, and club to club. Vientiane knew for one night what is a true Rugby Team in full night action. Enough said.
Sunday 30th of January 2011
10:00a.m and Darrel as general in chief of the Southerners rang the bell at every door to wake up everyone…“almost everyone”…Sod and Lord were still busy with their night-long gay sex frolicking and didn’t heard Daz’s call. Consequently the two lovers stepped on the field two hours late, and missed one match…Useless! Anyway we lost this match, but thanks to some players from Vientiane Buffalos we were able to play the match.
With our full team restored, we played our final match for the Spoon cup. And it was with great pleasure that we played a very good match, with strong tackles and many tries, winning the match and the coveted trophy!
At the end of this great journey we were all exhausted but so happy to complete such a nice competition with teams from Thailand and Laos.
All the Southerners team would like to thank Darrel and Belly, who worked very hard to make this trip happen. The Southerners would like to thank also the Lao Rugby Federation, which organized this event.
It was a real pleasure for every one to spend a weekend in Laos, let’s do it again!
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