NY 7s 2004 - NY 7's - Threepeat!
Women win NY7s 19-0 vs Last Call!!
Congrats to Susy Bienstock on being named tournament MVP!!
In their first appearance at the NY7s, the men lose a close cup final, while the social team loses in the plate final. Women's seconds advance to bowl semi-final.
A great weekend, with TMR dominating on and off the field!

Men's recap
It was a relatively young crew of 19 who went down to New York to participate in the annual 7's tournament. The men had 2 teams registered, one on the club division and the other on the social division. With the multitude of quebec teams participating, we were left wondering if they should change the name of the tournament to "The Quebec Open Sevens International Tournament". Add to that, going there meant we had to reach at least one final in order to not embarass ourselves with the women who have won it for the last 3 years. Well make it 4 ! Well, almost a successfull mission, the men's club lost in the cup final 7-0 (we were robbed !) and the social side lost the final for the plate competition. More pics

That said, it was a fun tour for everyone involved.
Best moments:
- Mooner's outlandish outfit. That he wore it in public by itself is some kind of feat
- Watching the women's final and watching them win it!
- Making the club division final. Guys that's some kind of rugby we played. We all know we deserved better and the ref made a mistake
- Watching the seconds in their final. Well done lads. Too bad I had to ref it and screw it up!
- Watching British Army play Samurai 7s. Wow, what a match! You had to be there!
- Dion and MacLeod doing cartwheels across the street of our hotel, in front of the State of New York Supreme court
- Bar None

Thanks to all who drove, organised the water supplies. Thank you Steve for organising the trip and taking on some of the admin stuff to get it done. Thanks to all for coming and see in in the spring for our next tour!

Sake Wa Doku Desu Ka?
The Town played host to the visiting New York All Japan RFC this past weekend. Our guests arrived way too sober, with wives, girlfriends, children, strollers, sake and Jean in tow. The Town fielded a rather eclectic side made up of all ranks of Townies, including yours truly who attempted to play a half.

It was a perfect day to play rugby at the Rec, maybe a little too perfect. A hurricane or flash flood might have slowed down our guests to a pace more comfortable to those of us sporting a hangover from the night before. A good chunk of their offence centered coincidentally around their centre #12, who's Japanese name translates loosely into English as 'Slow Down You Slippery Bastard And Stop Scoring Tries". There were a number of shining Townie moments, most notably McMullen as Man of the Match, Mike Wadsworth adding to his try scoring tally, some of the youngsters stepping up their game (thanks guys) and Smiley's dummy/seizure/deer-in-a-headlight/spasm that left the visitors stunned and perplexed enough that they allowed him to slip by for the five pointer. It wasn't so much they bought the dummy as stopped to figure out if Smiley was OK and if they should be calling 911. Final score: Town wins by a couple of tries, the margins close enough that all were happy.

BBQ back at the club saw our guests unleash their secret weapon, revenge for the Town's earlier win: 9 liters of imported sake. Coupled with several rounds from the bar and several hits at the funnel, needless to say spirits were high. There was a heartwarming moment when one of the visitor's small children took time out of a busy foosball game to wander over and help fill daddy's funnel......you just can't start them too young.

Presentations, toasts, exchanges, toasts, and toasts were made. TMR was presented a wonderful framed jersey to commemorate the event. Our gratitude to Bobby Swail for helping out (especially organizing the team), and to those thankless individuals who were on food duty back at the club.

Later in the evening the revelry was broken with horrific Japanese cries of "SUS-CROTCH" "SUS-CROTCH" !!!! Thinking something perverse and deviant was taking place, I ran into the club only to realize that Khal was jumping naked out the window after a Zulu and our guests had mistaken this for a possible Yeti sighting. For more pictures of Khal au natural, please go to:  http://www.oregonbigfoot.com/gallery.php

Festivities continued downtown, with warm-up pints at an Irish pub and a tour of Montreal's.....um......er......colorful establishments. Thanks to Mike Wadsworth for his seemingly endless and frighteningly in-depth knowledge of our city's lesser known cultural attractions.

And our warmest thanks to Chikashi Kitabayashi (marry your girlfriend or one of us will!!!) and the glorious return of Makoto Arai, who last graced Scobie Hall with the Kajima boys in 1992. We will take you up on your offer for a rematch during the club's 50th Anniversary weekend, Labor Day 2005. Domo arrigato, biiru ga ii desu.......but sake is better.

Ron Chiasson
Semi-Retired Sukebe Master

Recap Women's tour to Ireland
Here we are at the end of our journey, the TMR women's rugby team
ventured off to Ireland last week to play in the Kinsale sevens tournament and the trip was quite the adventure as you will see in the daily notes from our tour that I share with you ...

Susy Bienstock
Tournament Organiser

Wednesday, April 30th
Leave at 10pm from Dorval Airport

Thursday, May 1st
Arrive at 2pm in Kinsale
We are thoroughly exhausted and mildly grumpy after a long trip but the weather is beautiful, the scenery is gorgeous, our accomodations are comfortable and we are very much looking forward to stepping onto the field.

Friday, May 2nd
We have evaded jet lag by avoiding naps and we are all quite well adjusted heading into our first training of the day at 10:30 am. This training takes place in the parking lot outside the guest houses as the field is quite a walk and though we are surrounded by green space we have been asked to keep off of it as the crops have just been planted.

This afternoon we walked to the field and trained for 3 hours in the most beautiful surroundings. We were atop a small hill looking out over the sea, it was sunny if a bit windy but the view was breathtaking.

We had a team dinner this evening that coach Karl prepared for us as we discussed tactics heading into the warm up day of the tournament.

Saturday May 3rd
As beautiful as yesterday was, today was equally as miserable. It's pouring, freezing and windy. We geared up in our rain suits and made the treck by foot to the field (a 20 minute walk). We arrived shivering and soaked. Our first match against Richmond (from London) was a misery. Neither team could see well enough to pass and when we did the ball was either whisked away by the wind or it was knocked on by our frozen hands. We tied 10-10 and were neither happy nor disappointed, we simply wanted to get warm. We spent a brief period in the general tent where over 80 men's and women's teams were seeking shelter from the outdoors.

Our second match against DLSP (from Ireland) was a bit better quality- wise but the weather worsened and it began to hail. All the same, we won 20-10. Our last game against Highfield (who were the champions last year and are from Ireland) saw even more improvement but the days weather took it's toll and we were simply too miserable to pull off the win, so the game ended 12-10 in their favour.

We walked home and did our best to get warm but we all have the chills and are developing coughs. Regardless, we are excited to hit the field tomorrow as it is clear that we can beat the best teams here and walk away with the cup tomorrow.

Sunday May 4th
This is unbelievable, but for the first time since the inception of the Kinsale sevens tournament 15 years ago today was CANCELLED! It has rained incessantly since yesterday and the fields were flooded so they called everything off. We are at a bit of a loss. We headed up to the tent all the same and ejoyed a pint with teams from across the world but the reality of having travelled all this way to have a beer is a bit hard to swallow.

For the next few days, the team travelled through our end of Ireland, visiting the sights of Kinsale and Cork. Though there were daily showers, the sun did come out regularly leaving us to lament the weekend weather. A week spent in a beautiful town with ones teammates can never be considered a waste but perhaps the TMR women's rugby team needs to revisit this event to to bring home the cup as well as the fond memories? Let the fundraising begin.