When you come to Hong Kong for the Sevens and spend the weekend in the haunts of Wan Chai

Each year before the tournament, a buzz appears on the streets as tourists roll in from all around the globe to watch the best Sevens tournament on the planet.

For two tourists last year – friends of former Sevens tournament director Peter Burbidge-King – the dream became something of a nightmare. But in the spirit of rugby, just had to be laughed off.

“I asked South African mates Brian Whittingham and his partner, Sue Van Wyk, who live in Perth to join us at the Sevens,” Burbidge-King recounts. “I got this excited phone call from Brian that they’d arrived at their hotel. The only problem was, they’d got their dates horribly wrong and had arrived exactly one week too early. Their return tickets were unchangeable. So they had to leave before the Sevens started.”

Whittingham is a straight-up South African who knew that through aching disappointment, there was a yarn in this that would go on for years.

He was determined to make the best of it, just like in a rugby game when a team knows they can’t win, they give it their best shot and tell themselves ‘better luck next time’.