I’ve just come back to the hostel after watching the New Zealand v France game with Mark at the Sports Cafe and even though I have a huge grin on my face, I can’t help but notice there’s now going to be an extended period of national mourning for their loss (or at least that’s how all the Kiwis are looking).
We were at Matt’s last night watching Stranger Than Fiction on DVD and got back at about 11 or some time around then, had a small power nap and met up with Mark again at about 1:45 am in the hostel lounge to watch the England v Australia match. Neither of us were entirely confident about the game, it’s probably more accurate to say we were both expecting England to get a bit of a hiding and the first few minutes of the match didn’t really fill us with confidence! After that, though, England steadily improved and thanks once again to the left boot of Mr Wilkinson, somehow managed to scrape through. It was definitely worth staying up for! I still can’t quite believe we won, especially after the performances of the group stage.
After the game, I got talking to a Brazilian guy in the kitchen and he was complaining about his country’s lack of success or indeed lack of anything meaningful in the world of rugby but the conversation quickly changed to football and he seemed more comfortable with that! I couldn’t really mention anything positive about English football so I had my ribena and returned to bed at about 5 after watching a little bit of the Aston Villa game.
Begrudgingly got up again sometime around 7:30 this morning after something I can’t even attempt to describe as a power nap, very quickly made myself reasonably presentable and met Mark again to head on over to the Sports Cafe for the All Blacks (silver and blacks, or so it seemed) game and breakfast. It was very busy in most of the bars on Courtenay Place, even at that time in the morning, so the atmosphere was good in the Cafe (it’s essentially a huge sports bar despite its name). When New Zealand raced into a 13-0 lead or whatever it was, we both (and everyone else in the bar aside from the lone Frenchmen brave enough to show up) assumed it was a done deal. However, somewhere and somehow, the French managed to find themselves something resembling a fighting spirit (better late than never) and to give them credit they came back well. There was some quite abusive language towards the English referee from the crowd in the bar and even some from the professional, neutral ex-All Black commentators on the TV, especially over the sin bin incident and the forward pass that led to the French try.
Anyway, the defeat was met with utter disbelief and shock. Ever since I’ve been here, everyone has taken it very much for granted that the cup is heading back to New Zealand, it was never questioned. Well that’s not happening now! Such a shame. Everywhere seems to be so quiet, I think there’ll be some sore heads in the morning but not in the way the Kiwis were expecting. It worked out well for England though, I highly doubt they’d have pushed New Zealand anywhere near close if they’d have met each other. At least we stand half a chance against the French.
It’s all quite funny though but I’m careful to hide my joy when surrounded by locals! I might head off to bed again in a few minutes, Welly’s always quiet at weekends anyway and today’s result will probably exaggerate that further. It’s very surreal, I can only describe it like there’s been a death or some national emergency or something like that.
Ah well, there’s always 2011… or 2015… 2019…