Dubai: Last year's IRB Rugby Sevens World Series win gave the islands of Samoa brief respite from a period of grief following 2009's devastating Tsunami, according to Samoa's coach Stephen Betham.
"We lost almost 200 people, some of our boys lost family members too," Betham told Gulf News on the sidelines of a conference yesterday in Dubai to announce the start of the 2010/11 Sevens World Series.
In September 2009, two months before the 2009/10 World Series kicked off in Dubai, 175 people were killed when an 8.3 magnitude earthquake generated waves of 14 metres (at their highest) along the coast of American Samoa and the Independent State of Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa). It literally wiped out low lying areas of the Pacific Island State and left few of the 250,000-strong population unaffected — 5,700 were displaced.
Instant joy
The Samoan Sevens team couldn't instantly raise the spirits of their nation at last year's Dubai Sevens, or indeed the two-series tournaments which followed in George and Wellington.
However wins in Las Vegas, Adelaide, Hong Kong and lastly Edinburgh in May 2010 confirmed their status as world champions and gave the country reason to cheer.
"It lifted our whole nation after the Tsunami," said Betham. "I don't think anything has ever topped winning the World Series. It's the biggest achievement our boys have ever done on the world scene."
At rugby 15s, Samoa has attended four World Cups reaching the quarter finals twice in 1991 and 1995, meanwhile their previous best in the Sevens World Series was third since the tournament's inception in 1999/00. This was twice achieved in 2008 and 2007.
Betham reminisced, "When we got home thousands of people lined the streets from the airport to the town, which is about a 40-minute drive — we couldn't get out of the airport, we had to have police escort."
As to whether the same feat can be achieved this year with a good start under their belt in Dubai, Betham laughed, "We sort of exceeded our expectations last year. This year it will be a bit more harder, we've got a big target on our backs now."
"To carry that championship-winning role into any tournament is not an easy task. Sometimes you can fall short, it depends on how the players are focused."
"That's been my hardest part in this role to keep these boys level headed and down-to-earth, not to think anything else but to come here and play rugby again."
