Saturday the 11th of July was the day we had all been waiting for, and a meeting time of 6:45am had been laid down clearly in correspondence leading up to the day. Due once again to the sensational organisational skills of Alaister Nimmo, a large contingent of around 45 players, supporters, parents, and offspring had been put together to make the annual pilgrimage to Rugby Mecca Sugadaira. The group - bristling with anticipation and anxious to get on the road - was forced to wait even longer thanks to newly crowned Harlequin model Andy "Mr. Cool" Ballard. In scenes reminiscent of a Sugadaira departure some years previous, when former Gaijin player and fellow model Romeo Devlin strolled up to the bus 40 minutes late with Starbuck's coffee in hand, Mr. Cool and Czech mate Lucie showed similar distain for the arrangements in turning up considerably later than our planned departure time. We couldn't stay angry at them for long though, and once on the road our high spirits returned. Making good time in the luxury coach that Nimmo had hired for the trip, conversations on the journey up ranged from the validity of Al Gore's global warming crusade to the benefits of hedging currency when doing business with overseas companies. We were also treated to Blake Walker's full repertoire of Michael Jackson jokes.
The trip flew by, and after a quick stop in the Sugadaira township to pick up some supplies, we pulled into Hotel Davos around 11:30. Kitted up and back on the bus by 12 noon, we made our way to the location of Saturday's 10's tournament. As with last year, it seemed that the so-called "organisers" of the 10's would have difficulty arranging a Nomikai at the Suntory factory. With five teams present, some kind of round-robin tournament would surely have been the best approach, but it was a knock-out tournament that eventuated.
We just fielded a mail through our site from someone in Australia asking if we can purchase tickets to the Bledisloe Cup in Tokyo. This person did not want to go through a packaged tour company as they plan to stay on and see a few extra sights around Japan.