Rugby 7's - Las Vegas

Watching professional sports, like football and baseball, was limited to big games like the super bowl or world series with the church youth group where the giggling girls sequested themselves away from the group and the game. Even now sports for me is limited to running events or watching the Olympics.  When John wanted to watch the Ruby Sevens in Vegas (two weekends ago), I agreed so I could earn points in the "Good Girlfriend" category.  Driving to Vegas and watching a game I knew nothing about should earn me double points, right? I had zero intention of watching a full two days of non-stop Rugby, a sport where the only thing I knew was it's hard core, the ball is rounder but similar shaped to a football and men get drunk, stupid drunk.

The website showed this picture of cute, young blond bimbo girls and I figured I would be surrounded by near-perfect hot chicks where the men wiped the drool away but acted like they weren't watching the girls walking by shaking their bum while their fake boobs threatened to pop out of their already too tight tops. What I happily learned was the diversity of the crowd and that many of the spectators were older and from islands like Samoa. The Samoans are not small petite people and I quickly realized my fear of being compared and judged as inferior were unwarranted. If anything I had a fear of being sat on and squished to death but at least I would be able to outrun them if they didn't sit on me first.

Rugby Sevens attracts 16 of the best teams from all over the world and is all about the lucky number seven. Seven players per team, seven minutes per half and seven points for a converted try. When John told me the game was only 14 minutes long I asked how could they possibly score in such a short time. Watch...it's a fast, exciting game he told me as I rolled my eyes.  we arrived while the 3rd game was in progress. I opened up the Official Program handed out at the entrance and saw the page for keeping score.  I figured I might as well keep score to give me something to do and pass the time.  The 16 teams would play 3 times before the quarter finals which didn't start until 8pm. It was going to be a long and boring day.

It turned out that the 14 minute game was perfect for someone like me with a short attention span.  The games moved fast.  There was a lot of action on the field and points racked up on both sides or games were shut out with England, new Zealand, Fiji and South Africa coming out on top after the first 3 games.  The surprise was Somoa, who took the championship the year before, was tied with South Africa but because of total points scored, Somoa wasn't ranked first.

Having kept score the first day I suddenly became almost as popular as the guys wearing american flag underwear.  I knew who was playing and when.  People copied my results in their own schedules so they too could be in the know.  It was a great day and the final game came down to South Africa and Fiji with South Africa winning.  It was truly exciting and I'm now a rugby 7's fan and can't wait for next year.

The fans at the game are great.  People wore costumes, carried around bigs heads, wore capes and some wore almost nothing at all.

Big Tony loves his Bud Light

For two days these guys took pictures with all the women. They won  the prize for the most photographed

I do NOT have a big head and think I'm great.

Let me know when it's my turn in the audition for The Godfather

How can you tell if you've had too much to drink? You ask people to pop things against your forehead. He would tell them "use your flat, open hand...not your fist"

Fijians wore big hair, sunglasses and blue costumes.