Monday, April 14, 2008
so thats that.
rugby b division finals today. i think there were at least 800 rafflesians around, possibly even more than 1000.
during the match we basically lived and died, cheered and cried with the rugby team.
unfortunately it didn't quite happen for us.
it ended acs(i) 15 ri 11.
and we conceded the winning try in the last 10 minutes. painful to take really.
at the end of the match it was quite emotional for a while when the school crowded around the rugby boys and cheered them on. some of the rugby boys were crying, and the school was crying with them, and i shed a few tears myself.
why? well it's been 17 years since we last won, that's one. we were 10 minutes away from doing it again.
the rugby boys played their hearts out. i don't think we could have asked for any more from them.
it's just sad that there could only be one winner.
but we have nothing to regret, nothing to be ashamed of. and i guess today marked the rebirth (somewhat) of the spirit which we have seemed to lack in recent years.
rugby is probably the biggest sport in ri. i think sending 16 classes down for the final made that quite clear. and the additional people who came down numbered in the hundreds.
so maybe that's what gets us going. support for something which has been starved of glory for so long.
but although they didn't have any trophy to show for it, they did the school proud today. they earned the respect of the supporters.
good job to all you ruggers.
and it was good to see that there was a healthy respect between the acs(i) and ri students. the cheering for each other and just respecting the other school's space.
and on the way home it was further evidenced.
as i got off at tanah merah there were 2 acs boys as well. one of them walked up to me and congratulated us for a intense match played in good spirit.
i felt rather ashamed that i didn't reciprocate the favour enough really.
oh well so that's the rugby finals. the softball semifinals didn't go too well either - we lost that one too.
maybe the 185th batch of raffles institution isn't fated to deliver sporting excellence.
our b div rugby team was pretty good. we may not have a team like that for years to come.
in 3 b div finals this year, we've won gold only once - in tennis, losing in hockey and rugby. and our 2 losses were close ones.
oh well there's always another year. perhaps not for our batch though.
Thanks to all the blogs i referred to (countless) for html code help :) (esp. cyn' and sixseven)
Adobe Photoshop Elements for supernatural abilities
