Netball and the 'Happy Juice'

Over the last month or so Samoa's Men's Netball Association has been fundraising to send a team the men's netball world cup in the Cook Islands in October.  One of their events was a 1 day tournament held one Saturday recently.  Of course Angela could stay away from a netball tournament, so we turned up to play, this time with our mates from the Hyundai team. 

As per usual the 10.00am start didn't happen and we finally got started at 11.00.  They actually had more teams than expected - 12 in total - so had to modify the draw. The end result was that we had to play 5 games, plus a semi-final and final if we got that far.  Fortunately the games were shorter (2 x 10 minute halves) but it is still a lot of netball for one day.  

Anyway, we got started and were going OK. It was good to be playing with the old Hyundai team again.  After a couple of games we were all hot, tired and thirsty and this is when the 'Happy Juice' was concocted, as per the following recipe:

Take 1 chilly bin (or esky if you are an Aussie, cooler for the Americans) and tip in a couple of bags of ice. Then mix up a few bottles of Sprim (Sprim is a powdered drink like Raro or Refresh in NZ or Tang in the US) and pour them into the ice. Then take one bottle of vodka (cheap, local vodka - don't waste your best 42 below on this brew!) and pour it into the chilly bin.  Stir and enjoy!   

So it was compulsory shots of 'Happy Juice' after each game - the more shots the better.  It seemed to be doing the trick as our performances picked up after we had been 'refreshed'.  Some of the boys might have over done it a bit,  I did notice some of them slowing down in our later games!  

Because of the late start and large number of teams the tournament seemed to go on forever.  We had done well enough  to make the semi-final, and we won that game quite easily, so we found ourselves in the final against the V-Bar Girls.  It was a tough, close game, but we won and collected our first trophy for the Hyundai team!   

We were all convinced that the 'Happy Juice' had made the difference, it was our edge over all the other teams. Luckily there was no drug testing at this tournament!!