competition - day 1

a cruisy start to the day against namibia who we beat 15-0. benson lent a namibian a glove because he fronted for the game with a white glove and white stick [not allowed in the rules]. namibia seemd a bit confused by some of the rules and ref signals throughout the game.
timing displays/systems all to cock again like sheffield. do these people not think of testing these things in advance to make sure they operate properly?

we continued in a cruisy manner when we played the south africans later on as well and went down 2-3 despite playing 5 or 6 against 4 for the last 2 minutes. more cock-ups with the scoring/timing system meant the clock wasn't being stopped in the last 2 mins of game time [for infringements] and we were denied a fair amount of time to equalise the match.
also the start of the game was delayed 5 mins due to something in the video taping area. dunno what but it is the same problem that we had in 2006 - you'd think they'd have this sort of thing fixed by now.

this is billed as the premier uwh tournament in the world, but minor technical stuff-ups like timing problems make it very apparent that we are an amateur sport. it's galling when you realise that such things are avoidable problems with a little bit of operational planning. more galling still for the athletes who train like professionals and spend money like drug barons to get here and compete.

oh, and today was my birthday, thanks to the women's team for the card and the wine. thanks to all who said happy birthday and thanks to the guys for the lemon meringue pie - which they enthusiastically helped in the disposal of.

tomorrow's games = france @ 09h45 local [7.45pm NZ] & usa @ 14h45 local [0.45am 27/4/08 NZ]
french will be tough and confident as they beat south africa today. usa probably not quite so tough.