The article below is an account of the latest Bali 10’s tour by one of the Arabian Potbelly Rugby Players in Dubai by PB Quasimodo

Bali 10s – Day One

Entered into the Bali 10’s Vets Cup, were a group of Potbelly Veterans, in a futile attempt to recapture their better days, set out for the magical island, in search of sun, sea and avoiding any need for additional hip replacements.

As with all Potbellies Tours, events started with a charitable endeavour, visiting a coffee plantation and the local community, on the northern volcanic territory. Much was learnt, sports kit was donated and super charged civet coffee was appreciated by the weary travellers, who had assembled from the four corners.

Bali 10s – Day Two

Our first warm up session, a bout of beach rugby, against a local mob of super charged, steroid popping, super human, U15 teenagers team — The Canggu Dogs / Bali Heat… Or at least that’s our excuse for getting our arses handed to us on the fine shores of Canggu Beach. A few of the touring party contemplated swimming off home. There was also a fitness warning shot fired across the bows very early on, where PB Quasimodo said he needed a “rest” after 42 seconds of play against the Dogs, which worried a few. Fortunately the arrival of local chilled Bingtangs ensured the Potbellies regrouped, re-energised, and provided a sublime lesson in rugby’s finer skills to the local rabble by basically forgetting the “touch” bit of the ‘Touch Rugby”. The only problem then appeared to be PB 30 Seconds, the focal point of our lineout effort, had obviously been at the donuts in preparation and solidarity for our upcoming game against the Malaysian Police Force. This in turn meant that he weighed marginally more than the Death Star to lift. So, The lineout wasn’t looking good, although your correspondent is pleased to record that our full-on 5 man, 480Kg scrum destroyed the 170Kg, 3 man effort of the U15s. In that sense at least, it was like men against boys. So the scrum was obviously looking good.

Bali 10s – Day Three

We recovered and nursed injuries.

Bali 10s – Day Four

The Bali 10s Tournament kicks off. We had a mid-morning fixture against the Jakarta Dinos an outfit, most of whom looked surprisingly youthful for a Vets squad. After initially putting intense pressure on their line, they scored a breakaway try, a lead which was consolidated a few minutes later—probably after a lineout I imagine, where we had now resorted to using cranes and car jacks to lift PB 30 Seconds. … However, we were still competitive (line-outs aside), and after yet another break from PB George Michael, PB Invisible scored our only try of the game, a straight 12 minutes of combative 10 aside, to leave us losing the game 15 points to 5… not bad considering we were playing a bunch of 24 year old gym-junkies.

Our second game, against a mining outfit from Aus / Indo , was more evenly matched, because at least they had read the rules on the “age policy for vets”. They did however have one player who was a 270Kg, 6’9″ tall miner and had obviously done time for GBH. PB Quasimodo, whilst on the burst, chose to run directly into said miner to discover what happened when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Lets just say everyone in the ground winced and the crash was heard in Perth. It was also in this game we first displayed the unique art of try line fever, although our lineout still wasn’t working. To be fair though, it wasn’t just PB 30 Seconds who was having a dodgy time at the lineout by now. In an often forgotten and overlooked move, PB Invisible interpreted the line out call to be “Fire the ball at top speed into the ample crack of PB Quasimodo’s arse” as opposed to the more traditional throw to the jumper (Darth again), who by some loophole in the laws of physics this time we had actually managed to lift. Ironically our try in the second game came from one of their lineouts, where PB Lord Lucan stole the ball off the GBH miner, who was subsequently flattened by PB Slip Slap Slop doing his Exocet missile impersonation, before PB George Michael’s and the back line’s wizardry created space for us to score via the wing in the far corner. Losing the game 10-5 was no shame in the end.

With no more Vets fixtures for the day some of the squad, we shall refer to them as the deluded dementia sufferers, ran out for the Barbarians in the Open Cup. Limbs were lost in a bruising encounter against an efficient Perth outfit.

In the evening we licked our wounds over a 15 course gastronomic, four hour, marathon pig-sty-athon, which endangered the viewing of Wales defeating Australia. (Editor Note: The bloody Wallabies won, ya Taffy Buffoon!)

Bali 10s – Day Five

Day five saw a very early start against Malaysia’s finest. The Police rugby squad. Many a Piggy trembled. Would the Officers identify them from Interpol’s latest Wanted Persons list? Caught by a sucker punch try almost directly from the kick off, while most of the piggies were still wiping the sleep from their eyes and really desperately hoping for the caffeine / brufen / paracetamol / an emergency shot of vodka to kick in. From the restart though you could see the effects of the various stimulants working, and the subsequent panic slowly starting to appear in the eyes of the opponents. like they’d been caught beating a confession out of a backpacker or something. PB 50 Shades continued his excellent half back work with PB George Michael, but this time choosing to showcase his brilliant banana kick from fly half, at one point managing to put the whole of our team offside, causing uncertainty in the Police ranks, who just threw the ball out for a lineout to us rather than score. The line out calls were now “Seriously, don’t worry about it. Just F* throw it in PB MMA”. Using such a tactic, it looked like we were disorganised, further disorientating and panicking our opposition. Finally, having camped on their line for a full 8 minutes, in a staggering example of white line fever / forward-play bloody mindedness, by ignoring both our full 5 man overlap and the roars of “pass it out FFS” from the unknowledgeable onlooking crowd (for fully 3 minutes), we finally bulldozed over for the equalising score with the last move of the game, proving, again, that piggy brawn is indeed sometimes better than brain. We can happily report, the game ended in a 5-5 draw, with no arrests and just a couple bruised ribs.

With a five hour wait till our next game (!!!) several Potbellies were spotted surfing the waves off Jimbaran Beach, whilst others ran out for the Barbarians squad, picking up additional bruises as their only reward.

Due to what can only be described as ‘Potbellies fear’ the next scheduled opposition withdrew from the second game, leaving us with a tasty rematch against our law enforcement friends. Not wanting to chance their luck a few of the Potbellies retreated to the sty, watching from afar, as the game kicked off. The intervening hours had been fortuitous for the Police squad, with their ranks swelling (pun intended) of recently graduated Police Academy recruits, adding speed to their back line. After the kick off the “reinforced” police raced out to a 2 try lead, until showing our versatility of team thought, this time we decided to use our two man overlap allowing PB MMA to not only score in the corner but also flatten the policeman who’d thumped him late after the score for his trouble. They’d have yellow carded the policeman, but as he was lying on the ground whimpering “Has he gone yet?” the referee and linesman decided that would only be adding insult to injury to the poor policeman. The score however proved not quite to be enough. Police 10 – Piggies 5, I think that was the final score. But don’t quote me on that, Officer…

The tour wrapped up in the evening by the partaking of many local ales, enjoying Irelands crushing defeat of the French Frogs.