Jakarta 10's_ May 12 summary

At the British International School (BIS), on this weekend, the Rams Bandung in association with the Jago Dulu from the present time did well, finishing 10th nation of the tournament and eventually claiming the Plate runner up. This tournament was beefy, and on the rich green grass of the BIS field, the players play the spirit until the end of the day, fighting the best team of East Asia and a strange thunderstorm at noon. Some players lost their nose but not their face, others defend beasty but in style, and some did score tries from the end of the world, for the pleasure of the plebe around.

The time of the day started by a bottle of tequila, doubtfully offered by the more dodgy HongKongish team of the field, these guys were drinking all along and level of their performance getting down with the sun raising, unfortunately managed to beat the Jago-dulu rams early the morning when the quality of their tackle were style fresh. In digression, you must understand, miserable reader who doesn’t know very well the science of Rugby, that Rugby 10th is weirdoes and weirdoes: play in normal field, the shortest 10mn game doesn’t give any chance to any mistakes, mis-passes or long-contact, and as the time is flying as the wind up the Jakarta towers, the best option is pass, run, pass and score, and the volunteer of usual brutality I can remember when watching old Beziers-Toulon, are lost in translation. My friend, it is not working.

On the other side of the pitch, Rams were not surprised to lose against the winner of the tournament, the marvellous team of national Malaysia University, whish I would like to give some words of congratulation. These guys have the essence of the game: playing, playing, playing until scoring, and are quick. Darwin evolution gives them the quality to be the best at the Jalkarta 10th. Training 3 times a week, excluding muscle session, they deserve what they have got by their work and ambition. During, the Indonesian federation meeting, one British white man told us: “ the ambition of Indonesian rugby is to reach the same level than the Malaysian one”. Under such deep and poor analyse, I just stayed voiceless. When day was raising, game were becoming more brutal more pitchy, more violent, and infirmary girls were jumping, with smiles, from injuries to injuries.

Eventually, after the break, it was decided to split the Jago-Bandung-Rams team into 2 boards: when the competitive team were flying to victories to victories, the other one show a miserable and boneless face, someone I know even told me : “ Look at, this team has no blood and look like coming from zombieland”. I don’t give a shit to these comments, and we proved by few rare action(s) of international class, that without blood you can not kill us. Anyway, Rams Joga n°1 did well and raised the final of the plate after beating the Benfica from Timor Leste with skill and aggressively. Unfortunately, it is forbidden to play a final without winning; and unfortunately into the night, Jago-Rams lost agains PSA (Polytechnic Shah Alam) for playing too soft but exhausted after giving so much to the game during the day.

To conclude, I would like to write some very personal comments, which is forbidden to repeat even to our friend Balisoni. After such fantastic journey to Jakarta, and time in the 10th Tournament (well done to the Komodo for their organisation, I wish one day Bandung can ambition the same success), the Rugby game does not belong to the British or to the English, but I have seen, here in Asia, another style of rugby, very funny, unique in his style, played by Indonesian, Papua, Timor and Malaysian players. A kind of new style where fight is not the priority but moving and life is the one. Rugby might reborn again into the more improbable rugby location of this earth, here somewhere in Asia. That’s it.