Cape Town Tens
Article By: Dan Nicholl, Rugby365 HERE

Dan Nicholl looks back at a stellar maiden outing for the Cape Town International Tens — breathtaking rugby, great crowds, and an industrial volume of beer…

Friday: The eve of the tournament, and everything’s looking good to go for a cracking weekend. A capping ceremony at Wakame sees Fleckie and Skinstad introduce some stellar names as part of their Sports Illustrated Adidas Legends team: Eddie Evans, the Canadian prop; Kees Meuws, the giant Maori prop with a Homer Simpson-like love of beer; Jake Boer, the star of the English Premiership; Matt Phillips, the Kiwi who ended up playing for Italy; and Craig David, the English R&B star.

Turns out David is actually Leon Lloyd, famous for punching Fleck in a Test match for England; Lloyd and the rest of the squad head down the road to Hamilton’s, home of the tournament, and take up residence in the Castle marquee, where Meuws begins his quest to drink 200 beers before the weekend is over. That sets the tone for a quiet night out…

Saturday: 8:30am start, which means most of the players at the Tens have had between one and three hours sleep. Fleck has had none, and looks ready for intensive care after his opening game; Skinstad, eyes a rich scarlet, isn’t much better. Meuws, who spent the previous evening speaking French and only answering to the name Bruce, moves comfortably past the 50 beer mark mid-morning as the tournament warms up on a brilliant day in Cape Town.

The John Deere Ceres team catch the eye early on in the Beer League, led by Afrikaans rap artist Carl Jorgens, while Westville, headlined by Trevor Halstead, also look menacing early on. John Allan’s SA Legends have three teams on display, with Andre Vos, Corné Krige, Robbie Kempson and John Slade amongst the teams; Rob Louw, with model granddaughter Roxy along supporting, is managing the squad, while Ian Macintosh has been taken out on loan from the South African Rugby Museum for the weekend to coach the teams.

The crowd is awash with celebrity — as well as Roxy, Brian McMillan drops in, Matthew Pearce makes an appearance, and Christian Stewart, telling anyone who’ll listen about how much weight he’s lost and how hard he’s working out, swings by. Polish models Kasia and Kinga, along with Roxy and the Adidas Tens cheerleaders, cause much craning of necks, while Gcobani Bobo causes a stir by arriving dressed as a homeless extra from a Dr. Dre music video.

Skinstad’s outfit improves as the day unfolds, led by Zimbabwean prop Vakai ‘Fish’ Hove, who’s R80 appearance fee for the weekend is set to boost Zimbabwe’s GDP for 2009 by 61%. UCT prop Herbert Mayosi is also in celebratory mood, having become a father for the 13th time that morning; UCT end the day unbeaten, and along with Maties and the Western Province Vodacom Cup side, look the team to beat in the Premier League.

The real stars of day one, though, are English band The Light Years, who’ve flown in from London to play the tournament, and blow the marquee apart with a roaring display that sees four encores, and has the police sent to check noise levels dancing in the crowd. Retired lock Howard Kahn gets into a tussle with UCT flanker Craig Kleu, and ends up knocking him out cold with a punch Robbie Kempson watches with undisguised admiration, but it’s a quiet night otherwise.

Moment of the day? Meuws, having passed the 120-mark late evening, spots a small boy watching nervously, holding a rugby ball. Leaving the group of large rugby players, he walks over, says hello, and spends five minutes teaching him to pass. The little boy is positively glowing as the big All Black high fives him goodbye; outstanding example for every celebrity sportsman.

Sunday: Leon Lloyd declares Tiger Tiger should be illegal, Eddie Evans swears he’s never going out with Christian Stewart again, and Dave Von Hoesselin gets ejected from an establishment of ill repute at four in the morning, and looks even worse than Fleck did the preceding day. Good start for the rugby community, then…

The day starts quietly, but builds up quickly, with some very intense rugby being played. Halstead is tackling anything that moves, as is Pieter Muller; Kempson, who’s hardly thrown a punch all weekend, is wearing a fearsome black eye, courtesy of Muller the day before. There’s blistering pace on show on both fields, with a rejuvenated Fleck showing some moments of brilliance, at one point shrugging off the attentions of five players to score one of the better tries of the tournament.

Former Free State prop Greg James, now working for Fleckie, arrives with Nick Farr-Jones, and Dale Santon, after two warthogs and a small camel for breakfast, arrives for a second day. Celebrity highlight is the arrival of Seth Rotherham, involved in a highly entertaining feud with Idols judges Randall Abrahams and Dave Thompson, and the traffic stopping Tracy McGregor, for a promotion with sponsors playhugelottos.com. That takes care of lunch; from there, it’s on to the finals, and some champagne rugby.

Kempson, Muller, Johan Kapp and the rest of the Legends take the veterans’ title, beating Hammies in the final, while a monster clash between Ceres — minus the suspended Jorgens, who’d tested positive for Liquifruit that morning — and Up The Bay, sees False Bay win it. And the final game produced some thumping hits, plenty of tension, and what looked like being a draw (in which case a best-of-five paper/rock/scissors would have decided it), before a late Maties try gave the farm school victory over Vodacom Western Province.

Cue one final night of celebration, with Meuws running a chaotic fines meeting in which Jake Boer showed why no one on the planet drinks a beer quicker, Skinstad manufactured numerous obscure rules to avoid drinking, and tournament director Ron Rutland made a brief and spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to match Meuws drink for drink. Big Kees had switched to cider for a while, claiming the beer was no longer having an effect; he was back in time to pass 200 by the close of the Light Years’ second majestic performance, and bring down the curtain on a wonderful celebration of rugby. Bring on 2010.