report of GZ

I'm back I'm back from Guangzhou..
fun:) tiring and a few things learned.

i found out that i got airsickness...mabuk udara.. headache and feel like vomitting!
haiyo, so pathetic la.

i found out that in 15's we want to receive the kick-off but in a 7s game we want to kick-off. In a 15s game, there's more players and we want to commit and go for tackles but in a 7s game we want to avoid contact and we want the ball to stay alive.

I found out that not everyone in China can speak Cantonese. I also found out that Mandarin is the school medium there.

last year's ranking :
1.China
2.Thailand
3. Kazakhstan
4.Uzbekistan
7. HK
8.Chinese Taipei
9. Singapore
11. Laos
12. Malaysia
13. India


Philippines, Japan, Korea didn't participate in last year's tournament...They are not new teams, they just didn't take part in this competition last year.
This year, some countries didn't take part too, there's why you see some rankings not filled. If i'm not mistaken, last year there was about 16 teams.

this year's ranking
Our target and goal of improving our ranking was achieved. We are now ranked 10th in the Asian Women's 7s 2010 (previously 12th). Whether we're selected for the Asian Games remain unknown until we are informed by the organisers in due course.

Asian Women's 7s 2010 ranking:
13th Korea
12th Laos
11th India
10th Malaysia
9th Philippines
8th Uzbekistan
7th Taiwan
6th Singapore
5th Hong Kong
4th Japan
3rd Thailand
2nd Kazakhstan
1st China


here's part of the tour report. credits to coach Haflil. edited by me.
friday 23rd july 2010.
Met at LCCT at 3am. Reached Guangzhou at 9.35am. We were greeted by our liaison, a really sweet tall young girl, who thought her name was too complicated to us so she decided to give herself an English name the night before so that it would be easier for us... Melody. She proceeded to give us a 2-page essay about herself as an introduction. One of the passages of her essay reads as follows:

"Because of the culture shock, I may unpurposely say something that you think offends you... And I will try my best to avoid it from happening, and have a wonderful time getting alone with you."


The bus took us to an island called the "mega higher learning" island where 7 universities are located in it! The island was populated mostly by students. We reached one of the university hotels, checked-in, had lunch, and slept.

We were given a special room for meals with 2 huge round dining tables and were served with food like you get in a Chinese wedding dinner (around 8 courses) - 3 times a day! Simply awesome...

At 5pm we proceeded to the stadium for acclamatisation training. The stadium was almost a copy perfect of the Hong Kong stadium with super thick grass which was more comfy to sleep on than our hotel beds.

Then it was dinner and off to bed... except for the Team Manager, "Couch" and Team Doctor who waited for the last player, Tasha, to arrive from Bali.

SATURDAY 24 JULY 2010
Game face on, 8-course breakfast eaten, off to the field!

We were informed that this tournament was the trial run of the ASIAN GAMES 2010 in Guangzhou to be held in November. So we were actually using the facilities of the actual ASIAN GAMES!... and watched part of the opening/closing ceremonies. Dr. Choong had a good time taking videos of the rehearsals.

With a bit of logistical issues, we managed to settle down and get ready for our first game.

Malaysia vs Japan
We were not expecting much from this game except to serve as a warm-up game, to settle our nerves and to keep the scoreline as low as we can. Japan was a much better outfit of course and had ball possession around 90% of the time. When he had possession, we lost most of it in our lineouts and scrums. Final score 52-00. Japan won.

Malaysia vs Uzbekistan
On the management side, we thought that this game was one of our best game of the tournament in terms of how 7s should be played. The Uzbeks were of course like giants and wanted to play in close quarters. We kept the ball flowing out wide all the time, and when we saw space, we went for it. But we couldn't convert our breaks into points as they were fast enough to provide cover defence. Possession was 50-50 in this game! Our defence was up in their faces and we collected a lot of fumbles from the pressure. 34-00. Uzbekistan won.

Malaysia vs Laos (Grudge Match)
We lost to Laos twice last year in Pattaya. It was time to exact revenge. Last game of the day and the players were all fired up.Overall, everyone played really well as a TEAM in this game. Great runs, great support and great passes. 19-00. Malaysia won.

In the evening, Aki suggested that all of us grab a 2-seater bicycle and cycle around the island for an hour... which we all did... but it was more a race and almost got knocked down by cars, lorries and other bicycles... the amount of noise created by us got everyone there out of their hostels... everyone slept happy after that.

SUNDAY 25 JULY 2010
Since we were ranked the top of the bottom qualifiers, we did not have to play the play-offs games in the morning. Our first game was at 2pm. We did not know who we were going to play against until 12pm. When we were told it would be India, everyone's game face turned on immediately... as we knew we had to win this one... no matter what.

Malaysia vs India (Super Grudge Match)
Not much was spoken in the bus trip to the stadium, in the changing room and during warm-up. Everyone was super serious. A bit of history: we beat them twice in Pattaya, they beat us twice in Borneo. All 4 games had some ugly violence in them.

We kicked off to India. Our defence was up quick and smashed every India player as soon as she had the ball. Final score was 17-07. Malaysia won.

Malaysia vs Philippines (Bowl Finals)
Unbeknownst to the team, Philippines had earlier trashed Laos 40-00. This only the management knew. The players were all ready to play in the finals and were all fired up once again.

Philippines posed a bigger challenge than Laos or India. They were more structured, bigger and faster. Nonetheless, we maintained good strong pressure at kick off and Philippines was forced to play a kicking game which they outran us at times. Some lapses of concentration on our part created gaps between the our centre and winger which they exploited and scored from.Final score 22-00. Philippines won.


After the bowl finals, we watched the rest of the remaining finals, and more photo taking with the other teams of the tournament (except India). Then dinner, video session, Kangaroo Court.

MONDAY 26th JULY 2010
We hit the streets of Guangzhou. More tiring than the 2 tournament days! Flight was delayed so we took more photos of ourselves... we arrived safely back at LCCT on Tuesday 27th July 2.35am.