Rugby World Cup 2015

A few days after Australia beat England and knocked them out of the rugby world cup I confided in a South African guy I was having beers with.

“I sort of feel bad for them” I said. "It’s not their fault they got placed in a tough group, the pressure they got put under" etc etc.

Luckily the South African was able to set me straight with a solid point.

“Rake, no”, he said. “You shouldn’t feel bad for the English”.

It was a good point, you shouldn’t. A couple of week later I was glad I’d been set straight, after the Australia v Scotland quarter final, which turned out to be fantastic for English rugby fans. When Bernard Foley kicked the penalty and won the game for the Wallabies, they finally had a sense of purpose: to seize ownership of this great injustice and have a cross to bear for the next week and a half.

Being a Wallaby fan in London the following week went down about as well as a fart in an elevator. People would come up to me at work and carefully explain how the poor Scots had been robbed and we didn’t deserve to go through. Some of the people (I only started work a couple of weeks previously) I hadn’t even properly met yet, but they were happy to have found an Aussie so they could tell me they wanted us to get knocked out.

It was nice in a way, despite everything. It was lovely to see the English choosing to take such a leading role in sticking up for their northern neighbours, and it’s a favour that I’m sure the Scots would have gladly returned to the English if their positions had been reversed.

Even more heartwarming was that with the Wallabes facing the Pumas in the semifinal, the English and Argentines were able to finally put the Falklands behind them and unite behind a common enemy. A pub full of poms loudly cheering the sight of Maradonna pumping his fist on tv showed how much the Wallabies’ win has done to make the world a better place. Craig Joubert should get an honorary mention when they next hand out the Nobel Peace Prize.

So I was happy for the English. The thing is apart from the fact that the pedestrians here can't keep a straight line on the footpath I actually like English people a lot. They’re funny and self-effacing and generally good company most of the time.

Twickenham before the final

On the morning of the final London woke up to an absolutely cracking, sunny still day. I was going to the final with my mate Jimi, who had spent part of the morning trying to get a photo of his infant son eating kiwifruit in a wallabies outfit so he could caption it “We eat kiwis for breakfast”. It took him 45 minutes, because it turns out his son doesn’t like kiwi fruit, and was worth every second.

It was my second trip to Twickenham, and what I like about it is that you go there with your mate, but when you get off the train everyone’s there together. Not unlike British pubs in general really, but with the excitement of the rugby added in.

Jimi’s go-to bar at Twickenham is The Albany so we went there and had some beers with an English couple who had were living in Auckland but had flown back for the game. An Australian couple had flown over for the weekend. Later we met a New Zealander who managed to coincide his 50th birthday with watching his team win the world cup.

Jimi, Henry and Rake before the game

After grabbing some more beers (and a photo with Henry Speight who was wandering about outside the stadium) we found our seats and settled in for some rather low-budget pregame entertainment. It looked like a bunch of high school dancers practicing for something more important. The crowd was solidly in favour of New Zealand, especially in our area, and the excitement built up when the All Blacks lined up for the haka.

There’s not much the opposition can really do during the haka without showing disrespect or having it blow up in your face by firing up the All Blacks, but I was mildly amused by what the Wallabies chose to do. Steven Moore positioned himself in line with the middle of the ground, and everyone else spread out away to his left, with the result that the New Zealanders formed up to face straight ahead but had to look over to their right a little bit to stare them down. I’m not saying it was as good or dramatic as France in 2011, but I liked it - cheeky but not disrespectful. Better than going through some kicking drills anyway.

Wait there's something up with this...

The game went by very quickly. Within a few minutes they had a penalty after nearly scoring a try and we were on the back foot for most of the first half. We would have happily taken being down 9-3 at the half, but it was not to be. A well worked move was finished off just under our seats and the kiwis exploded.

Soon after the break Nonu went over and it was time to face the fact that we might lose this game after all. Do you ever go through some of the stages of grief when you’re watching your team lose a game you really want to win? The main step for me is bargaining – checking the clock and going through in my head the increasingly ridiculous events it would take to come back. Three tries, easy.

The first step was for Carter to miss the conversion, which he did. We told some kiwis in front of us it was going to be the turning point, drawing laughs from everyone around.

A little bit later on we started to believe it when Ben Smith took a ten minute break, and at 21-10 the game was back on. When Kuridrani scored in front of us, I’ll be honest, I thought we had them. There was nervous silence around us and we loved it. One kiwi fan, decked out in a New Zealand flag and looking as though he was particularly desperate for a win, patted me on the shoulder nervously.  It was a great couple of minutes.

Unfortunately it didn't last. Dan Carter lined up a drop goal perfectly in line with where we were, and we watched it sail sweetly through the posts. Then we thought surely he can’t hit this penalty from 50m...but yes, he could. I was back to bargaining – just two quick scores and we were going to be right back in this…

And then came acceptance. I hugged my new kiwi mate and he thanked us for a good game. They’re not all bad across the ditch. An announcement was made that the trophy would be presented followed by fireworks in All Blacks colours, which I thought would be a neat trick. Eventually Richie was given the cup to a back drop of mostly blue and gold confetti, presumably made the Highlanders contingent happy.

All Blacks Colours Are Hard

Afterwards we trudged out across the Twickenham forecourt. A small motorcade came past and we stepped aside for them, Prince Philip in the lead car slightly more than arm’s reach from where we now stood. It was hard to know for certain but I assume he was entertaining his companions with an uncomfortable joke. A couple of cars later there was Prince William, right there in front of us and giving us a hearty wave while inside the stadium his little brother shared backslaps with the All Blacks. For us, it was back to The Albany to try and move on.  

A Local Derby at Ellis Park, Johannesburg

Ellis Park Stadium with Hillbrow and Ponte Towers

As my wife and I approach Ellis Park (sorry, Emirates Airlines Park) on Saturday afternoon, a hatchback speeds towards us, away from the stadium. The car is full of rugby supporters in Lions red and Blue Bulls blue and as it approaches it slows down, the windows roll down, and a stream of throat-gargling Afrikaans pours out.  

 

I look back blankly and they try again in English.

 

“Where is the police station around here?”

 

There’s a sense of controlled urgency rather than panic, although one of the Bulls fans in the back is bent forward unnaturally.

 

“Sorry mate, we aren’t from around here”.

 

Silence. It’s their turn to stare back blankly. I feel the need to explain myself.

 

“We’re Aussies”.

 

The blank looks turn slowly to bewildered smiles – it seems finding a pair of foreigners wandering around Johannesburg’s inner suburbs is more interesting than whatever it is that needs police attention. Even the possibly injured Bulls fan turns our way.

 

“So…yeah… Sorry about that”.

 

They suddenly remember themselves and drive off quickly, glancing back at us in mild disbelief.

 

*****

Ellis Park, northwest corner

 

I don’t like to start a story about going to a game at Ellis Park by talking about security and crime in South Africa. It’s a cliché, for one, but mostly because I’m not qualified to talk about it. It does however cross your mind, especially as you walk off in the direction that a carload of rugby fans have just sped away from in search of police help, and after having read TripAdviser reviews with titles such as “Robbed at Gunpoint”. Fortunately we arrived at the stadium without further incident.

 

We’d planned well ahead for the game (except that we had no idea that the cool thing to do before a Lions game is to tailgate in the KFC carpark) and got ourselves the most expensive seats available at 130 rand. That’s around $14 Australian, and got us sitting right beside the players tunnel. Most seats were going for 40 rand, or just over four bucks. So while we in Australia wring our hands at the financial state of our rugby and assume that the superior crowds in South Africa mean that they're rolling in cash, spare a thought for how much financial power they’re actually able to translate their crowds into. A couple of beers at the game is less than $5, and I could have saved the $70 I spent on a Lions Currie Cup jersey and just bought a knock off for $8 outside the ground. No wonder they lose so many players to Europe and Japan. Anyway, I digress.

 

Ellis Park, like Newlands and I presume many South African rugby grounds, is an imposing stadium with steep sides, with ends that are almost vertical. When the game gets going the crowd of around 28,000 people feels like more than 40,000 people. Being a Brumbies fan used to watching rugby at Bruce Stadium, where 14,000 people feels like 8,000 it’s extremely impressive.  

 

The game is tight and hard fought, and has the feeling of a derby (it’s the only “real” derby in Super Rugby) with tight defense and high intensity. The Bulls fans have come out in numbers and when the crowd roars it’s not immediately evident what team has just won an advantage. Around us coarse-voiced barrages of Afrikaans are directed towards the field. I often wondered why visiting teams were apparently so intimidated by South African crowd abuse, when much of it was presumably in Afrikaans, but even with the translation you could pick up the aggression.

 



Players running out before the match

Mid-way through the second half and with the game still tight, a guy in front turned around and maneuvered his throat and phlegm into a sentence of Afrikaans. I once had a guy in Pretoria tell me that Afrikaans is not a language it’s a throat disease, and that’s pretty close to what it sounds like. He repeated himself in English.

 

“I’m sorry about our language” he said, presumably referring to his swearing rather than Afrikaans in general.

 

“Don’t worry, we don’t understand any of it anyway”.

 

As before, I felt the need to explain myself.

 

“We’re from Australia”

 

And once again, happily bewildered faces turned to us, and having turned up in Lions colours we became best friends quickly. They offered sincere congratulations on Australia’s cricket world cup win and we cheered on the last twenty minutes of the game.

 

With only a few minutes left and the game tied 15-all, the Bulls fly-half Jacques-Louis Potgieter cleared the ball downfield, only for a Lions player to make contact after the kick. After the TMO was brought in a penalty was given downfield. Whether or not the penalty was fair I don’t know, but the crowd became incensed by the obvious dramatics of Potgieter, whose apparent agony disappeared as soon as the referee blew his whistle. He then kicked the Bulls in front, having made a full and unsurprising recovery.

 

With a minute and a half left it looked like curtains for the Lions. The rain from earlier in the game had returned, and having scored only six tries in nearly 640 minutes of rugby this season the last seconds of the game came as a bit of a surprise. The Lions quickly kicked off, regathered the ball and having turned down a chance to tie the game with a penalty scored a try through the reserve hooker, Armand van der Merwe. What a great South African name. For some reason he’s also called Akker van der Merwe. Oh Afrikaaners, don't ever change. I should also mention his nickname is "The Angry Warthog".

 

Naturally the red portion of the stadium erupted with hugs all round as we celebrated with the real Lions fans their win over their northern rivals.

 



My new best friend, wearing a garbage bag

We hadn’t organized any transport home from the game (my fault) so we headed out looking for a taxi. Not immediately finding one we asked a policeman which direction would give us the best chance, and he told us to wait on the street corner as he’d get someone to take us. Assuming one of his mates was a cab driver we waited in the rain, until eventually a police car turned up with two young cops.

 

We finished our night riding across town in the back of the squad car, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

 

Match days in Johannesburg, it seems, are a lot different to match days in Canberra.