Taif al Delamie, the Arabian Gulf winger, is so committed to succeeding in this World Cup season that he has taken a four-month sabbatical from his job in Ireland and relocated to Dubai. He is currently bunking down at the homes of any teammates who will have him, but, despite the odd hardship, he would not have it any other way.
"It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to come out here and do something like this," he said. "I don't ever want to think I didn't give it 100 per cent." His may be an extreme case, but Delamie is not the only player in this Gulf squad who has made significant sacrifices ahead of this weekend's Dubai Sevens. All the players are part-time, and can only attend training after work.They have managed to shoe-horn into the work diary trips to sevens tournaments in Rome, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
They also recently attended an intensive and highly-productive training camp with the South African coaching team in Stellenbosch. As a result, there is a real sense emanating from the Gulf camp that an opening day upset, against either Kenya or Scotland, is not beyond them. Delamie is an Oman national with a strong Irish accent. Despite the fact he has played the majority of his rugby while at school and university in Ireland, he actually first learnt the game in the Gulf.
"I moved out to Oman when I was three years old, and when I first started playing rugby it was in Muscat," recalled Delamie, 22 , whose mother is Irish and father is Omani. "We played on a sand pitch," he said. "But I only started getting into it properly when I went to Dublin and attended boarding school aged 13. "It was just once a week in Muscat. When I went to boarding school it was training every day. That is what we did full time."
Delamie, who recently graduated from Dublin City University with a degree in sports science and health, bucked the normal Irish default of idolising Brian O'Driscoll [the Ireland captain] when he was growing up. "I'm a huge fan of [England's] Jason Robinson as well," he said. "He was so exciting with ball in hand. I'd like to consider myself more of a stepper, like him. "The lads on the sevens team call it dancing as opposed to stepping when I have the ball."
pradley@thenational.ae
