Bali 10's 2004 - Tyrone comes home!

At our third attempt Colleagues have come good and won the Bali 10's on the weekend of October 2 & 3, 2004. Having been very close losing semi finalists in 2003 and the cancellation of the 2002 tournament following the events of October 12, this was a much desired win by all (as evidenced by the week long celebrations round Bali) and especially the five originals who backed up for this year's tour for three in a row - Lovey, Spanner (the Evil One), Judy Garland, Boydie the Bintang Warrior (ok so you missed the second one) and myself.

The 2004 tour squad, travelling in new Colleagues tailored pyjamas and slippers (most comfortable way we have ever flown), journeyed to Bali from Sydney, although we did drag in one Charlie Brazier (can kick) from Hong Kong. The 2004 squad comprised 15 players ranging from grades 1 right through to 6 with every man having grown a moustache for the trip. Regretfully after having run two solid pre tour training sessions we lost our coach Paul Howard before departure due to last minute 'blood clots' (best excuse yet) but got the services of an international business chairman in his place at the airport as Team Manager!

And so while there was a minor delay before departure and other families looked nervously around the lounge hoping they were not seated anywhere near the idiots in pyjamas, we all sampled some of the early duty free purchases to get into the spirit of things. Take off would see the Colleagues boys assist the air hostesses inform the rest of the plane of the safety instructions and while it was hoped by many passengers early on in the piece that the early rounds of the drinks cart might put the whole squad to sleep, it clearly didn't work. Upon landing we clapped everyone who had sat near us for putting up with us and they didn't return the favour whatsoever. Oh well, most of them had now moved on to the “I hope they are not at our hotel” stage!

Seamus then did Ireland proud at the Indonesian visa control by queuing in the need a visa line when he already had one but as he pointed out it was air conditioned where he was waiting? And so off to our hotel where the pool and pool bar were hit fairly quickly and many stayed home the first night ‘to get some much needed sleep'. Those who were up for it ventured to the welcome function for the tournament to meet the other teams and friends - we won best dressed pretty quickly - and to find out the tournament draw. But after a flight, a half day in the sun, the time difference and a couple of beers it was a relatively early night for the Colleagues boys.

And so to 10th Annual Bali International Rugby 10's at the Grand Bali Beach Hotel! Day One of the tournament would see Colleagues first of all face off against the IDR Memories from Jakarta - a mix of expats and a couple of locals - and while somewhat rusty from the day before and new combinations, victory was confidently secured by the boys in blue - actually wearing mock league jerseys from the 80's complete with league legend names on the back and proudly sponsored by central coast big league lover Paul Henningham. Spanner bought a new style of warm up to the huddle called "feel the love" which involves toughing the player to your right's bum and looking upward but it clearly worked and one I am sure he will bring it back to Colleagues with him next year.......?

Our second qualifier was against the Kotekas, a bunch of native Indonesians from the Freeport mine who are a basic Indonesian development side. The Kotekas play the game in a fantastic spirit of enthusiasm and brotherhood (magic to watch) but were no match for the strong Colleagues boys who ran in 7 unanswered tries and we gave our whole squad the opportunity to blow out the cobwebs. It should also be pointed out that guys like Seamus, Bill Asmar (Cannonball), Neil Dooley and Boydie also helped play for other teams who were short of players throughout the day and did a sterling job for them when not running our bench.

Our third and final qualifier on Day 1 was against the Nagas, a hard hitting bunch of big Kiwi mining boys with names like Stone Cold and Ming the Merciless who only play one tournament a year and are therefore very focussed on winning this event. This time they came with an even bigger squad and coaching staff and were really looking to set themselves up for a run to the Cup final. However, a very draining forwards encounter would see a nil all result with Colleagues just topping the group on for and against meaning we went straight through to the Cup play offs with as best as can be expected draw. And so with happy hearts we took off to the Grand Bali Beach pool bar to have a well earned beer with the rest of the teams at the conclusion of Day 1. A couple of beers later and we were in full voice singing “Aga doo” to all and sundry as we left the pool and were forced to bribe a coach driver to keep the choir together for the trip back to our hotel. A few people were then lost back at the hotel but as Boydie pointed out "Hey we lost a lot of good people in WWII also" and so the survivors made their way out for Mexican before some sleep for the finals.

And so having recovered from the 'few' beers of the night before, we embarked on our quarter finals campaign on Sunday morning against the Bucks, Club Champions from Singapore. With the taste of a thousand 'Bintangs' in our mouths we made short work of the even more hung over Bucks winning by two tries to none. Yes surprisingly we had got over the hump! In our second game of the day and semi final we came up against ISCI, the popular Jakarta based club where Ben Roberts played. We seemed to save our worse performance for this game, being late in our preparations for the match (Andrew Brazier was taking swimming lessons) and played dreadfully all game. We somehow scraped through to the Cup Final 7-0 with a late try to Gareth Gower. And so some harsh words were said by the senior players to improve our game because we wanted this trophy and we had lost too many finals a fortnight earlier and no-one wanted a repeat of that. And so off to the pool to ease the aches and cool down ahead of the big one but the toll was beginning to mount with centre Chris Harris out injured with a quad problem, Gareth Gower's ankle just hanging in there thanks to Dr Yowie's strapping efforts and Corker's nose was broken again!

And then we came to face the 5 times previous tournament winners the Bali Chooks - a side made up of current and former Perth, Hong Kong, and Canberra first graders. On our form from the semi not many were backing us to win, and certainly not the Chooks in the pool before the match who thought they had an easy game ahead to victory. But the whole tournament crowd was behind Colleagues as the underdogs and, following a minutes silence for the fallen rugby players of 2002 which really focussed the Colleagues boys when ISCI came out and stood under the posts staring directly at us, they really gave it some from the corporate and team marquees.

We were never going to beat the Chooks playing an open game as they were so quick on the ground, particularly out wide, so we decided to play the big front row of Yowie (this guy is awesome at 10's I kid you not - absolutely everywhere), Liam “hold me” Brosnan at hooker and Spanner - these were the three key guys who won it for us. With this size and Benson/Corkers (and then Lovey in the second half) in the backrow we were able to push them off every scrum including their own ball and kick the corners for the line outs as they had no height. It was a very clever tactic as we starved them of any ball in the first half whatsoever. Judy was providing good service at half back and harassing their backward scrum, the two Braziers were controlling the midfield with ball in hand and on the toe, Corkery and Benson were dominating the line outs, Gareth Gower was snuffing out every centre run and Kanney was safe as houses at the back. In fact if you asked Gareth, right from the deep kick off we were on top of this game with the Chooks lucky to break out of their own half of the field at all in the first half. And so with some heavy hitting in the clean out we went to the break 3-0 with a much deserved penalty goal by Charlie Brazier (not Andrew!) on half time that while not your usual 10's rugby was definitely called for in finals footie.

The break would see Dr Love come on for Corkers to start dealing out his own very special medicine in the clean outs and forward hits with Judy going to the bench for our seconded squad replacement "Johan" from the Taipei Baboons to come on. (Without Chris Harris in the centres we had had to move Gareth Gower the regular half out wide). After some fired up words and everyone's confidence well up as we knew we could do this, the second half kicked off with the same Colleagues '15 man rugby' tactics employed very successfully.

And in a moment which was much reinacted over the next week in various bars round Bali, following a scrum to the Chooks on half way, we pushed them back forcing the ball to fly out which was pounced upon by an ever vigilant Andrew Brazier who ran the fast break and looked to pass right to Benson, who then got tackled without the ball (robbed!), but found Lovey inside who continued the break and popped a beautiful ball to a flying Johan in the tackle and Johan was straight in under the posts with crowd going nuts yelling for Colleagues to cook some Chook! (We actually thought the Chooks were really good blokes and had beers with them later but their wives and girlfriends were the only ones supporting them in the crowd. Although they did think our Plummer Road Gourmet Chicken sponsored shorts were a direct dig at them!). Boydie then subbed for Benson to get some fresh legs in the backrow for the last five and we managed to control the ball well but the Chooks did manage to get the ball in open play several times and exposed us down the left hand side with their pace to eventually score just wide of the posts, but managed to convert to bring the score to 10 - 7 still in our favour. However, Charlie Brazier's multiple try saving tackles must go on record here as being just awesome and Spanner and Yowie also caught out wide together one time forced a knock on from four backs with their concerted defence. However, for the remaining few minutes of the match we pressured their line heavily and were packing a scrum with our feed five out when the gong went to massive rejoicing all round the ground!

A fantastic victory for Colleagues in many way against a much more fancied opposition and the boys from 1-15, from those on the field and those backing up on the bench, really gave it some in the victory song. The crowd loved it - it only took one call of get nude during the trophy presentation dinner - and we were easily the most popular boys in Bali for our win with everyone wanting to drink out of our enormous cup 'Tyrone' which will be presented to the Club on presentation night.

The Mad Monday victory pub crawl managed to move from the pool bar to the sunset bar - a whole 10 metres after 10 hours in the pool! How I pitied those other people swimming with their heads under water! And we were also officially presented with a club jersey by ISCI following our presentation to them of a Colleagues jersey in November of last year. Truly the best end of season tour I have ever been on and a tremendous victory for Colleagues at a very special tournament with players from grades 1-6 stepping up to play their best footie. Some highlights of the week included:

- Dooley playing in an Alien gimp mask for another team
- Yowie dominating the impromptu post tournament nude touch with his "kick and chase" game
- One player not understanding why the girl he so easily picked up in the bar wanted $200 in the taxi- chin up Corkers!
- The Friday night out with the Cup where we all dressed in full kit and boots with some very good lineouts in the nightclub
- Father Abraham ( no need to explain)
- One player taking a swim with a girl late at night and then thinking he had seriously lost her 'at sea' when her clothes were all that were on the beach on his return. Her hiding behind a sand dune crying because she thought that nice guy had stolen her clothes?
- “Put your clothes back on. These people are getting married once and they don’t need you to ruin it for them”- who was that?
- And Spanner of course.

Many important thanks also to those who supported our beer raffles and the corporate raffle to assist with playing kit and the tournament entry fee. Having won the tournament we intend to go back and defend it next year so if you are interested please let us know early as we all already excited to go back and get another 'Tyrone' for the Club.

Cheers
Lachie