England’s outstanding scrum-half Ollie Lindsay-Hague, scored two tries and Dan Norton, Simon Hunt and Mat Turner one each as England beat Samoa, the outgoing HSBC World Series champions 29-21. This hard fought match in front of a packed crowd, with I would guess 50,000 English supporters, was a great finish to the tournament. The semi finals were both also very high quality, hard fought encounters.
A pity that so many were not there for the rugby – young girls ednlessly fashion parading and blocking the view being the biggest pain. It seeemd for many the rugby posts were there as a guide to where to stnad to make a mobile phone call and block out the maximujm view. Given that 7s is only 7 minutes a half is it really too much to expect [eople to sit still till the interval – this sort of rudeness is not allowed at the tennis championships and it does not seem to be a problem there ?
And while I am having a moan is it really necessary for Emirates to stop people bringing food and water with them. Not everyone wants to eat burger and chips and whejn customers have paid Dh300 for a weekend ticket is it really necessary tocause so much bad will just to make another Dh5 on water?
And let me say despite those moans the orgnaisers did a fantastic job to cotnrol the traffic and the crowds, to clear the rubbish, to coordinate the numerous matches to schedule and to provide such a great atmosphere (though I doubt I want to hear the song Hey Baby again for for at least another year).
40 years of history also came to a tearful end as the Arabian Gulf badel farewell to international rugby. Their final of proud endeavour was a defeat against one of rugby’s elite nations, France but the home side dominated the majority of the game, and twice held a two-try advantage, only to subside to a 26-19 loss via two late scores in the Shield semi-final. The Gulf’s membership of the IRB will now be taken on by a newly formed UAE side.
