GAME #5 v Melbourne Grammar School

Venue - Australian International School - 3A NORFOLK RD, KOWLOON TONG, HONG KONG
Get off MTR at Kowloon Tong station Exit E, and walk 200m to school.

Kickoff  - 12noon.
10s format

Wrapup of Day #5

Boys are starting to feel the pressure of the action packed tour. With that, a well-deserved rest this morning was greatly appreciated by all, and a late breakfast at 9 AM was a bit of a luxury for all. 

After a delicious breakfast we then jumped on the very efficient public transport, the train system MTR. This was quite an experience for the boys as we had difficult task of changing to three different trains on route, The coaches set the boys a small challenge to get us to the venue of our first game against Melbourne Grammar, at Kowloon Tong, at the  Australian international School field. 

Upon arriving we were confronted with 6 to 8 international schools all within one block. All high-rise schools with very small playground facilities for students to get out and kick a ball. Aftre discussing with the boys the importance of how lucky we are at TSS to have 12 full sized grassed fields, we then were confronted with the AISHK's 1/2 court semi syntho grassed concreted pitch.

While waiting for the school grounds to open walked over to a local shopping mall and the boys got a bit of time to walk around one of the more modern shopping centres here in Hong Kong which included its own ice skating rink and movie theaters all indoors. 

We returned to the Australian international school and then started their warmup. The ground itself was very tiny and really could only cope with potentially six aside match, but we crammed an 11 aside for the match against Melbourne to our best ability. The game commenced with our own coach referee Spencer Attoe officating, the 15 minute quarters. We split our touring squad into 2 x 11 aside teams. Melbourne GS's strength wasn't in their play, and TSS from basically the start dominated in most areas of the game the final score was 60-10.

After a small celebration ceremony, we jump back on the MTR and returned to the hotel briefly before changing clothes and heading off to our first experience at the Hong Kong stadium and the Hong Kong sevens. 

It's one of those walks (about 25mins from our Hotel) that everybody enjoys, with so many rugby enthusiasts all heading towards the stadium, in their brightly coloured clothes and outfits. 

Upon arriving at the 40,000 seat stadium we moved up into the upper reaches so we could get a much better view. If you have a look at the photos on Flickr then you will be able to understand how high the stand goes. We are able to witness Australia winning their first pool match against Samoa and then proceeding that saw some of the other main contenders for the title including New Zealand and England play their pool matches as well. 

With the boys very keen to do a little bit more shopping at markets, we left the stadium before the main crowd started to leave, and headed over to the Jardine Street markets in Causeway Bay. Unfortunately upon arriving it seems the markets weren't up to the boys shopping expectations, and with that, we headed back to the hotel in preparation for our big day tomorrow over to Stanley looking through the historic area of Hong Kong Island, and the world famous market place.