respect.

Thanks in part to the Bermuda connection in the Windies side which has just returned from the prestigious Hong Kong Sevens tournament, the sport in the region is well and truly on the map.

Three players, Bobby Hurdle, who captained the side, Jon Cassidy and Danny McGavern plus team manager, John L Williams represented the Island and according to Williams things will never be the same again.

The Windies were making their debut at the competition and like any team making its first appearance they expected a certain amount of curiosity.

That they were drawn to play one of the world's top teams, Fiji, in the curtain raiser only served to increase the attention.

"I was grabbed the moment I got off the plane by press who wanted to know what my reaction was to the allegations concerning the Fijian Rugby Union and the fact that (star player) Waisale Serevi wasn't playing,'' said Williams.

"I basically made no comment and just left that alone. I didn't want to get involved. They also wanted to know who we were and where we came from and all that and it was like that basically every day.'' Prior to the game, the squad forged ties with the English team.

"That was good for us, we played full-on against them on the training pitch,'' said Williams. "Unfortunately Orlando Jones from Jamaica twisted his ankle and was out after that. He missed the whole tournament. He was really fast and would have definitely have been in the starting line-up.'' Friday brought the opening day and the biggest game in the players' lives.

"They were apprehensive. I mean what do you do when you are playing probably the best team in the world?'' Williams said. "They were good they had their heads up, went on the park and did the best they could.'' That they only lost 47-0 was a great achievement in a game where scores of 80-0 are not uncommon.

"They realised it was going to be intensive but thinking it is going to be intensive and doing it are two different things because the pace is so much faster,'' Williams said. "You can be ready for it but when it actually happens it's a different thing altogether.

"The Fijians are in the top three or four teams in the world and once they get the ball it's very hard to take it off them.

"The three Bermuda guys that we took, quite honestly, are three of the four best tacklers in the team and they did dislodge the ball off them several times, but it's just a very, very hard thing to do to take the ball away from these Sevens specialists.'' The next game was another 47-0 defeat, this time against Wales, and ended in a reprimand for skipper Hurdle for a tackle which ruled him out of the final Pool match against Russia.

"He was cited by the match commissioner after the game. We had to go to a hearing. We saw the video tape and it was a bit late, but it wasn't malicious,'' said Williams. "The Welsh guy had been knocked out but he was fine. He came to me afterwards and said he couldn't believe he (Hurdle) had been cited because he himself didn't think it was untoward.'' The Teachers player took the punishment on the chin.

"He wasn't angry or anything it was just life, there was nothing he could do about it,'' said Williams, who added it only served to galvanise the side against the Russians.

"It was a good thing and a bad thing. They realised they didn't have their strong leader and they had to get on with it without him. Cometh the hour, cometh the man and they stepped up. They lost 31-12 to Russia and if the game had gone on a bit longer we would have definitely decreased that lead by another two or three tries.'' The three defeats meant the side went into the Bowl competition, where they made it to the final after seeing off Thailand and Chinese-Taipei.

"Then when it came to the final we played the Hong Kong team,'' Williams said. "Bobby scored an outstanding try, but this was the last time the Hong Kong team was going to play together. It has been playing together as a unit probably for seven years with the same guys.

"This was the one they had to win. They had won the Bowl six years on the trot and they had to win this one.'' However, the possibility of an upset reared its head when the Windies struck first.

"When we scored I don't think they could believe it. The stadium was stunned.

And then they just turned it on,'' said Williams reflecting on the 47-5 defeat.

Williams said the side had not been disgraced in any of the games and had been invited back next year on the strength of their performance.

"We are still Reggae Cowboyz, as they called us, we haven't reached the elevated status of cricket or soccer but we have definitely raised the profile,'' he said. "People just had no idea that there was any rugby talent, but now they are saying `We have got some serious players'. The three guys that we have got are very, very good rugby players who could easily have slotted into any one of these major teams without any difficulty. We have got respect now.'' Williams said it was now important that they built on the momentum they had built up.

"The amount of maturity gained by some of the guys who have not played in an international tournament before ... They are changed people from when they went. Their respect for rugby and Sevens has gone from zero to outer space,'' he said.

"You are going from playing in front of two or three men and a dog in Jamaica and all of a sudden you are in front of 42,000 people in probably the biggest rugby event in the world. These guys are walking around now saying `we have got to do something'.'' As they say, watch this space.

On the rampage: Danny McGavern (third from left) backs up his Widies team-mate against Thailand.