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In the year of the “Indian Winter” here in Korea, the Seoul Survivors achieved a first; they won the 1st Annual Ansan 7s Tournament. With two teams the “A -team” and the Killer Bs, the Survivors set out to win their first Korean tournament in what may be the team’s long and storied history.
The competition was tough. The A-team missed its first game due to a “time discrepancy.” The A-team’s second game was a success; at least having a full team to take the pitch.
With six Survivors and one Ansan rugby player, they took to the pitch and demolished the opposition. The “Ansan Warrior” was a replacement for Jin; as he made his way to the pharmacy with five minutes to go before the game. On his return, he stated that he had a bit of a lower digestive tract problem. The Killer Bs and the A-team rolled easily into the finals after several hard fought games.
The A-team played first against the Seoul Buk High School Old Boys Club. The game was well battled on all three sides. The ref, Survivors, and Seoul Buk made the game interesting. With five minutes left and the Survivors down 14-12, Rico made a clean hard tackle on an opposing player. The ref felt the tackle was a bit too hard for his liking and awarded Rico a yellow card. Showing his disgust for the call with a “flying finger”, Rico was quickly up- graded to red. The A-team, now down one player, made a marvelous comeback, scoring two tries and winning the A-side division 24-14.
The Killer Bs then played the Ansan Bravo for the B-side Final. Despite a hard fought game by the seconds, the Bravo came out victorious. Seven games played by Survivors and six wins during the tournament. With one title and one runner-up title out of four awards, the Ansan 7s was a total success.
Cheers go out to the following players: Simon Walsh, Philip Guerrero, Ibrahim Zylstra, Hikaru Tamoto, Jin Lee, Nathan Atkins, Tim O’Connor, Theron Fau, Newton Thompson, Rico Colón, Justin Jackson, Jacob Leonard and Antoine Fafé as well as Gumi Barbarians Victor Yang and Gareth McKinnon. A big thanks also goes out to Dan “Glover” Grover for his organization, Kurt “Makkeoli King” Taogaga, Roddy Bancroft, Richard Jang, Nick Goodman, Emilie Godefroid, Holly Durkin, Rene Bancroft, Aidan Bancroft and Amiria Britton for their great support. See you all next spring for the Ansan 7s; if there is a spring. |
