By Stephen Barber, IRFU Chairman

ISLAND STYLE RUGBY returns to the hallowed turf of the Canggu Club, Bali over the weekend of October 27 & 28, when the IRFU hosts the “THIESS Indonesia International Rugby 10’s Bali 2007”. Following on from the success of the National Rugby Team’s grand slam in Brunei, the IRFU is looking forward to next year and will use this year’s Bali tournament as a way of identifying potential new national squad members for 2008, as well as to celebrate what has been Indonesian Rugby’s most successful year ever.

The current level of rugby development in Indonesia is evidenced by 10 Indonesian-based club sides of whom 4 are made up entirely of Indonesian players, participating in the THIESS Indonesia International Rugby 10’s Bali 2007. This is the highest ever participation of Indonesian based rugby players in the tournament’s 13-year history and it is also important to note that over 60% of the players from all of these local clubs are Indonesian-born. The Indonesian teams hail from far flung regions of Indonesia including the flamboyant Kotekas from Papua, the Gosowong Miners from Halmahera, coal miners from Sangatta, oil & gas boys from Balikpapan (both East Kalimantan), Nagas’ miners from Sumbawa, as well as locals from Bali who’ll be putting away their surfboards for the weekend and club sides from the ‘Big Durian’.
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The 2007 Rugby World Cup Final will be televised live at 2.00am on the morning of Sunday October 21 (9pm, October 20 in Paris) and there are two main venues the IRFU is encouraging rugby supporters to get along to that evening.

Firstly for those keen to celebrate the evening with a black-tie gala event the ISCI Jakarta Rugby Club is hosting a cocktail dinner and ball at a premiere Jakarta location. This event starts with cocktails being served at 7.30pm, rolling on well into the evening with plenty of ballroom dancing before the start of the final. But it doesn’t stop there as the ISCI Rugby diehards are planning to continue onto the wee hours of the morning when breakfast will be served. For details about this event please contact Dan McNally on 081-7014-0239.

For those keen on a later start Indonesian Rugby and the Jakarta Bantengs Rugby Club will be hosting a Rugby World Cup Final fund-raising event at Aphrodite, Klub Rasuna starting around 11pm, with festivities, raffles and rugby trivia leading up to the 2am kick-off. For those people who make it through the night breakfast will be served around daybreak. For details on this event please contact David Nye on 0813-8875-7192.

Recently IRFU Board members were invited by Ibu Rita Subowo, the President of KONI (Komite Olahraga Nasional Indonesia or National Olympic Committee of Indonesia) to discuss what the IRFU was trying to achieve in regards to the development of rugby as a sport for Indonesian Nationals. The IRFU delegation was headed by Mr. Andrew Nugroho, IRFU President, who was accompanied by Mr. Stephen Barber, IRFU Chairman, Mr. Bill Ryan, IRFU Secretary and Mr. David Nye, IRFU Rugby Development Officer.
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Greetings all,

Some pretty interesting rugby results over the weekend - it is great to see that the South has 5 out of the 8 Quarter Finalists with the Fijians and Pumas adding to the Tri-Nations!

This Saturday arvo out at ISCI the ISCI Rugby Club and the Jakarta Bintangs are playing some FUGBY – what’s FUGBY? FUGBY is half a game of AFL Footy followed by half a game of Rugby.
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