International club competition
Thailand hopes to take rugby sevens crown from Hong Kong
Posted: Tuesday October 20, 1998 10:01 AM
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Thailand's sports establishment is hoping the fallout from Hong Kong's return to China will land a plum -- a major international rugby sevens competition -- in its lap.
Over the past 22 years, the annual Hong Kong Sevens has developed into perhaps the premier seven-a-side tournament, attracting fans from around the world to both superb play and after-game pub crawls.
Of much more recent vintage, Thailand's version has grown steadily with this year's October 31-November 1 event drawing 24 teams from 11 countries. It has high ambitions.
"Perhaps the Hong Kong Sevens are losing a little interest. We believe the Bangkok Sevens will soon rival [them]," says a hopeful David Dufall, chairman of the organizing committee.
This year's Hong Kong tournament, played in March, marked the first time tickets were not sold out in a day. But the finals drew a near capacity crowd of 40,000.
"I think next year will tell," Dufall said of Hong Kong's prospects, which officials there say are bright despite the loss of some of the tourney's biggest boosters -- British expatriates whose numbers have shrunk in the wake of Hong Kong's reversion to China.
With the former colony becoming de-Anglicized, some say the
rugbyesque atmosphere around the Sevens will be diluted and thus over time fewer devotees will make the trip.
Hong Kong will also find it harder to field top flight players because of the increasing number of test matches being played in the leading rugby nations.
But Thailand, which invites clubs rather than national teams, has a ways to go before it can fully take up any slack in Hong Kong. For a start, the venue is an old university stadium for fewer than 4,000 spectators.
And while the Thai Rugby Union celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and the sport is enjoying healthy growth, most Thais don't know a try from a scrum. Soccer and boxing are the sports of mass appeal.
Top teams for the 4th Annual Carlsberg Rugby Sevens, the biggest to date, will be coming from France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Fiji. The Pacific island's Davetalevu club is looking to win for the third time.
Dufall said the friendly, easy going ambiance offered by the Thais, as well as Bangkok's anything-goes night life, has contributed to the growth of the Bangkok Sevens. The powerful Thai army has also become a major patron.
Boosting this year's event will be the mounting sports fever as Thailand prepares to host the 13th Asian Games Decembber 6-20. Rugby will be among the sports played at Asia's edition of the Olympics.
A shorter, fleeter version of 15-a-side rugby, the sevens originated in the small Scottish town of Melrose when a local butcher, Adam Ned Haig, was seeking to shore up his financially flagging rugby club.
He came up with the idea for a tournament, but since it was impossible to squeeze several full-length, 15-a-side games into one afternoon, he proposed shorter contests with fewer players.
The hosts won the 1883 event but the neighboring town, whose team they beat, maintains to this day that Melrose didn't play by the rules.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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