Its a funny old game
Another week passed so quickly, and a reprimand received for not commenting on England’s surprising victory last weekend.
What is it about England teams in any sport? The more expectation, praise and hope that is heaped upon them then worse they perform. Write them off and suddenly they become world beaters. A kind of reverse psychology I guess - perhaps we should try it with the England football squad before the European Championships finals (assuming we make it of course - there you go started doing it already).
The same can almost be said with the England cricket team. Nobody gave them much of a chance in their current ODI series, having not won on the sub-continent for over 20 years they have stormed to a 3-1 lead with only one game remaining. I say say the same can “almost” be said, because nobody gave them any chance in the Cricket World Cup and they sadly proved everybody right.
Anyway back to the rugby. I watched the first 20 minutes only as I had to rush off for thrashing on the hockey pitch, but left them losing comfortably 8-3. When we came off such was my expectation that I didn’t even ask how we got on. It was only when I staggered into the bar to find that we had somehow managed to turn over the crims from down under to set up a semi-final against the All Blacks.
My thoughts turned to the Kiwi’s I know and inviting around to watch them grind England into the dust. Saturday night was a blur of beer and curry so I missed the result and Sunday though saw me dragged back to the hockey club to umpire a ladies match, and not pay too much attention the result of New Zealand France. Then I saw the post match discussion of Fiji South Africa and it became clear that SA were the only Southern Hemisphere team left. I thought it was just the hangover kicking in for a while but it became clear that we were in fact playing France in the Semi and not the All Blacks. I guess the weight of a nations hopes is too much even for them to carry!
I now have only 2 concerns. The first is that England are now fancied to win it and everybody is talking about us being the first nation to retain the Rugby World Cup. The second is that the only French person I know living close by is 9 months pregnant and therefore not the best person to watch the match, with in case a sudden trip to the local maternity unit is called for 10 minutes from time.