Samoa Wins the Dubai Rugby Sevens for the first time

So this is how it went. Samoa were in Pool C which was a tough one with England who always shine in Dubai and last year's winners, South Africa and Portugal. Samoa narrowly beat both Portugal and South Africa but lost to Portugal. Portugal managed to beat both England and SA kicking both those powerhouses out of the Cup race. Samoa then faced Wales and beat them nicely in the quarter finals. They faced France in the semi-finals and beat them too to make it into the cup finals to face New Zealand. The final was amazing. Paul Perez scored a try within 10 seconds from kick off. It was just beautiful. Lolo scored another, then Perez again. Another went to Tulolo I believe. Perez was on fire and he really stood out during this tournament. He was the player of the match deservingly. He was everywhere tackling the boys in black and was there when he was need to run the ball. The whole Samoan team played like champs and didn't give NZ a chance to get through this time. It was an awesome game to watch and for the first time Samoa has won in Dubai. My son and I went to watch on the first day but the weather was stormy and didn't want to risk getting sick along with my son so we went home and came back to Muscat the next day to catch the games on TV. 

We had a nice faiga lotu(prayer) with the team on Wednesday night in Dubai with our Aiga Samoa from around the Middle East but mostly those in the UAE. It was fun preparing food for the team as each brought a dish. Needless to say there was more than enough food and drinks and the get-together was just fab. Nice to see everyone else especially meet some of the new and old faces in the team. Great effort by our aiga Samoa once again. One Dubai 7s done and this supporter's liver was spared! heh:) Go the Manu...real champs. South Africa 7s this week-end. 

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