One spectator from Hong Kong will savour the occasion more than anyone else when New Zealand and Australia take to the pitch today in a rugby union World Cup semi-final at Eden Park in Auckland.
Sixteen-year-old Adam Prentice was elated when he got tickets for some early World Cup pool matches as a Christmas present from his parents. He had played rugby since he was a young boy and is a big fan of the All Blacks.
However, a serious spinal injury he suffered while playing the game he loved looked to have left his dreams in tatters until Hong Kong's caring rugby community came to the rescue.
With the help of the Hong Kong Football Club, DHL provided Adam and his father, Noel, the Post's sports editor, with business-class flights to New Zealand, along with two tickets to both semi-final matches. On top of this, Societe Generale gave them tickets to the final.
Adam was hurt while playing for Island School at the Football Club in March. He was transferred to the traumatology unit at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital. After initially not looking as bad as first diagnosed, new X-rays told a different story a few weeks later.
Within an hour, doctors had a halo traction device screwed into his head and a weight-and-pulley system stretching his spine. It was decided that he should have an operation where bone would be taken from his pelvis to fuse together the C2 and C3 cervical vertebrae in his neck that had been affected.