Edinburgh Sevens

Dan, Joe and I, originally uploaded by stewartr.

When we found out that Edinburgh hosted a Sevens tournament we were definitely keen to go along and watch. Considering the hassle it is to get tickets for the Wellington tournament, it was a nice surprise to find out that the tickets for this one were A) readily available and B) fairly cheap (£20 for the weekend).

An added bonus was that my mate (and best man) Joe was taking the train up to watch it.

The Saturday showed good Scottish form and, although threatened to rain all day, stayed relatively dry. We took our seats in the quarter-filled stadium in Murrayfield and it happened to be right next a very large group of rowdy/drunk kiwis. That meant there was plenty of entertainment to be had, on and off the pitch.

Being a 2-day event, the finals day was a bit of a struggle, but we faired better than some of the ex-drunk, now-hungover crowd alongside. It was kept interesting as, due to Fiji dropping out in the quarter finals, NZ had the chance to win both the tournament and the overall series.

And win they did much to the kiwi crowds delight -at this point the rest of the crowd had got kind of fed up with the rowdy kiwis situated near us, so there was little love to be had elsewhere.

Still the team came over after the award ceremony and performed the haka for us so at least they appreciated the support.

The photo kind of sums up the days, lots of black, face paint and flags. It was Joe and Dan's (pictured) first time up in Edinburgh and, although they spent most of it inside a stadium, I think they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.