Sunday, November 01, 2015

End of Rugby World Cup 2015

I fear that I have been greatly distracted by the Rugby World Cup.

Our campaign began in Copenhagen on Friday 18 November at the Globe Irish pub. There in the presence of a large and increasingly well-oiled crowd we watched the opening ceremony and the England play Fiji. in front of 80,000 people.

The next day we flew to Edinburg via a long and somewhat tortuous route involving Ryan Air. That night we watched games in a pub in Leith Walk that we made our temporary World Cup HQ while in Edinburgh. As we traveled through the UK, we watched games in pubs and clubs and motor way service centres as well as the grounds. as well as attending three games at the grounds.

It wasn't all rugby, of course. There was plenty of time for Helen and I to explore our various interest. Helen captioned this one "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.  I have no idea what she means!

Coming back to Australia, I then spent the following weekends watching rugby!

Last night I watched the finals from Daceyville, Helen from another pub in Copenhagen, exchanging notes during the game.

Watching all these games has certainly improved my knowledge of the modern game; there has been some very good rugby indeed. It's been an interesting and sometimes intense time. Still, it's just as well that it's over.

It's not just that I don't respond to sleep deprivation as well as I once did. It's also time that I moved onto other things. I fear that my writing is now well behind schedule. Despite all this, I'm going to miss the competition and the sharing.  

2 comments:

Winton Bates said...

Since I woke at 3am this morning it seemed like a good idea to watch a game of rugby. I think the last game I had watched was the World Cup final in Australia when Jonny Wilkinson kicked the deciding goal.
I enjoyed watching the game. I don't like referees to have a large impact on outcomes in any sport, but I think their influence on the outcome of this game was appropriate. I was impressed with the way the NZers played the game. I was amazed to see Australian players successively tackling opponents after they had disposed of the ball. It seemed like justice to see the game go against them after that.

Jim Belshaw said...

Good morning, Winton. There were some cases of late tackles, but I didn't see the same pattern as you. The refs have an important role in the modern game in keeping it flowing, preventing damage that can arise from large, fast moving bodies colliding. One of the strengths now of Union over League lies in the forward play.

There were some bad ref decisions that disadvantaged Oz, but the result reflected the relative strengths of the two sides.