If you are a typical beer drinking, rugby loving man.  This should be the highlight of your year every year from now on.  For those who have been there before i'm sure you will agree with me, there is nothing like it on earth!

Thank goodness Robbie Fleck and Bob Skinstad got together had a few too many beers and dreamt up this amazing event.  Hundreds of rugby matches, thousands of spectators and countless draughts drunk at Hamiltomns Rugby Club in the beautiful city of Cape Town.  The biggest beer tent in Africa and live entertainment from some of South Africa's leading bands.  And this has happened since 2009 getting bigger and bigger each edition.

This year 78 teams took part in the competition that was separated by 4 divisions.  Premier (for the serious rugby squads), Light beer (for those squads that come to have fun, but play to win), Heavy beer (for the squads that expect you to be hungover and in poor form) and finally the Veterans (for the over 35's that try to roll back the years).

I played for a squad named RQH Rugby in the light beer division.  The captain of the squad simply combined friends and family ranging as wide and far as from Johannesburg, Welkom and Cape Town.  Squads could be as big as 18, however you are allowed more for a small penalty fee.  The game is as follows: 5 forwards, 5 backs, 9 minutes a half 1 min half time and unlimited rolling subs. (The Heavy beer and Veterans divisions love that last rule.)  

Here are a few pics of us during the course of the weekend.  And yes our jerseys were designed by our own team captain Ruan Vorster, so direct your comments at him!

So after 2 games on the Friday, we had lost 1 and drawn 1.  And our position in the group was not looking too pretty.  However, Saturday we managed to play pretty well winning both our pool matches and thereby squeaking into the Light Beer Plate Quarter Finals by the tie breaker of tries scored.  We lost that match badly though and that was the end of the tournament for our squad.  For a group of misfits not a bad result at all. 

The rugby maybe was over but the event was far from over!  With bands such as the Graeme Watkins Project, Good Luck, Me and Mr Brown, DJ Sox and the Lightyears all playing over the two nights, the beer tent was rocking.  

The Friday evening party also included a fancy dress.  Here are just a few of the outfits. 

The party continued very late, both Friday and Saturday.  Predictably the earlier Saturday games were not so well attended, and the pace of the games greatly reduced as a result of the copious amounts of beer consumed.

Earlier on Saturday a young Doug Mallett (son of Nick Mallett) won a brand new VolksWagen GTi valued at R365k, sponsored by Stor-age.  All he had to do was let his place kick at poles strike the crossbar... he did exactly that!

The Veterans division was particularly exciting. Was so refreshing seeing Fleckie step through a gap in the inside with a fend away from the cover tackler and giving a pop pass to old Bobbie...  Typical WP supporter am I! Those were the days!  Fleckie might be grey, but his play is as colourful as always! 

So many more things took place, the SA Legends (who beat every team easily) also took a disadvantaged group of kids through a coaching clinic free of charge.  There were medical tents, Canterbury got involved, food and beverage areas, jacuzzi's and even a mobile Absa ATM.  Cape Town Stadium assisted with parking.  This event was massive and was one to remember.
I could go on for hours but i'd rather let these pictures tell the story for themselves.  Cape Town Tens... i'll see you next year!

Congrats to Maties winning the Premier division for the 4th year in a row, and well done to the SA Legends who took the Veterans crown.

Later,

Oom Frikkie