Pages Torn From a Couple of Dramtic Days on a Rugby Tour, October 2007
Part One
Our supporter's tour bus of 45 people is tense and emotional tonight. Emotional because we have just returned to our hotel after a day of touring the World War I battle sights of the Somme.
Our excellent local guide has taken us to various gravesites and numerous memorials, which are still intact and maintained perfectly. Yesterday we had stood at the graveyard of the first All Black captain, Dave Gallaher, in Poperinge, Belgium. Somehow knowing the body of Gallaher was there, interred among the long rows of gravestones, gave us a tangible acceptance of where one of our great early rugby stars was actually resting.
Today though our guide took us to the New Zealand Memorial at the Somme for those whose bodies were never found in the wartime horror mud and slush. There he pointed high on the wall to where the name of R.S. Black was starkly chipped into the stone. Black had been an All Black too. But his remains were never found.
We paused there and also read the names of the other 12 New Zealand rugby internationals whose lives had been taken in various theatres of The Great War conflict. Of course these visits are not just about fallen All Blacks. Members of our tour group have arrived at some places with notes from home to guide them to headstones where men from earlier generations of their family lie. (90 years on these are still very sobering places I can tell you.)
After a quiet coach trip back to the northern French city of Lille tonight we packed our suitcases and for many of us nerves overtook emotions. Tomorrow we will have a very long day. We will be up early and fly from Lille to Cardiff and watch the All Blacks play France. We will finish our day back in Paris. We might be awake for over 20 hours.
The two teams, who many thought might be the finalists here, will meet on neutral ground in a tournament quarter-final. Will our All Blacks come through on the back of their low-key opposition wins? Will France continue to improve as they have done so ever since their shock opening loss to Argentina a month ago?
Saturday, October 6 2007
6am: Up very early. Shower, shave and shampoo. Then match tickets to be handed out to everyone. Onto the coach by 9am and off to Lille Airport. It is slightly foggy as we drove along, adding to the tenseness. Our group REALLY want to be there to see the All Blacks to win. To that end 42 of the 45 in our group have put their 2 Euros into the bus sweep and tried to pick the score for the All Blacks. I have picked France to win.
10am: The skies have cleared, it is going to be a great day! As tour leader I have the microphone on the bus. I ask whether anyone else is willing to back the French to win.
"France is a good bet," I say and a murmur goes up. One man calls out "traitor!" and he later adds, "You should be ashamed of yourself, betting against your country." I try to reason with him, "Whatever happened to freedom of expression and belief? Isn't that what D.Gallaher and R.S. Black and tens of thousands of others kiwis fought for in WWI?" He looks at me strangely and walks away. Two women also back France to win. We all put our suggestion of scores in and board the flight.
I'd love the All Blacks to win. But I have had this nagging feeling that they won't for a couple of days now.
11am: On board our Charter flight; my pick is France 30 New Zealand 20 and I explain my logic to the blokes in the row behind me. It goes something like this; "The All Blacks haven't played totally well in their games. Sure, they have had massive point production (76-14,108-13, 40-0 and 85-8) but what does festival rugby do for tight World Cup disciplines?"
France's improvement has not really been given much credit. And I am firmly of the belief that they are much better than their defeat by Argentina suggested.
"Now that Dan Carter seems not be at his very best, in Frederik Michalak, France has potentially the most brilliant player of the tournament. And I always say the most brilliant flyhalf is always on the winning World Cup team."
"But Michalak isn't even starting in their team today," offers one of the blokes, to which I reply, "I know, I know, I don't understand that." But I stay with my prediction anyway.
Midday: We have hours to spare in Cardiff. It is an 8pm kick off. The good people of Williment Sport Travel have rung ahead and booked an upstairs bar for us to have as our resting point for the day and to watch the England v Australia quarter-final from Marseille.
2pm: The pints slide down comfortably and we enjoy the action of the first quarter-final. I don't know why, but most Kiwis raucously like Australia to lose now in rugby. Me? I love Australians but a mighty cheer goes up at the final whistle. The general feeling seems to be, "those bloody Aussies are gone, done like a dinner, gone like a scone! Good riddance is the call!"
4pm: I am off to check on a few of Cardiff's great range of bookstores and second hand shops. The streets are heaving with kiwis and French supporters. A high percentage I note are young, bright and fresh faced kids in their twenties, (OE is a wonderful thing, isn't it?) the other high percentage are gnarly old blokes who sway when they walk and have beautiful cauliflower ears. What game did they play in their youth? Easy answer to that. Most seem to be wearing something that identifies them with being a New Zealander and/or an All Black supporter.
A sidebar; several people stop and say they are enjoying reading my blogs on tvnz.co.nz! (Note to editor; that bit is true!!)
5pm: "Honestly darling, I have only bought eight books and a dozen old test rugby programmes." I have met up again with my wife Anne after she has returned from leading a second part of our tour on a half-day trip up through to Caerphilly Castle. She gives me her wan smile. She has only had to put up with books and rugby programmes everywhere in our home for the last 37 years.
We go to find something to eat. The streets are packed now with no traffic getting through at all. A couple of lads are kicking up and unders with a ball as we head towards the Millennium Stadium. Huge roars go up as the ball comes downwards and people scatter.
The only place we can find to eat is selling jambons et fromage et des baguettes, presumably for the French fans. They taste great, though not as nice as the ones we have enjoyed across the water.
7pm: There's a gathering inside the stadium of ex-All Blacks, all leading tour groups for Williment's. Murray Pierce is there (A World Cup winner in 1987) as was Richard Loe; Graham Purvis (he played in 1991 at the RWC) is there along with others like Dave Loveridge, Bryan Williams, Jon McLachlan, John Fleming and Gary Seear. Even John McBeth turns up with wife Raylene. I haven't seen John since he, like me, quit fulltime work. We hug - yes Quinn hugged McBeth - bet you never thought you'd ever hear of that happening? Now that we are both freelancers we talk here about the good fortune which has us in this place with so much familiar excitement from past World Cups around us.
7.15pm: We go to our seats. In the crush of the concourse we see three or four kiwi lads pass by. Under their shoulder-draped New Zealand flags and from behind their blackened faces they are chanting, "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Four More Years!" We all roar with laughter. Now we will show them what it is like to have that George Gregan taunt from 2003 rubbed in their own faces!
7.30pm: The two teams are on the field warming up. Keven Mealamu is in sneakers and not taking part. The word of this is new and we are concerned. Around us we reassure ourselves that the test rotation policy means that Andrew Hore will be more than adequate as a replacement to come off the bench for Anton Oliver.
8pm: The teams are on the field. We can't tell what colour France will be wearing as they keep their tracksuit tops on. New Zealand is in grey. It is not silver and their body-shapes look a bit different. Not so big?
I note that though there are thousands and thousands of kiwis in the crowd, many more than the French supporters, somehow their singing is louder than ours. I turn to look at some of them singing near us. Their heads are back with eyes closed and their voices are lifted in hope to the heavens. They have their hats and their berets pressed against their hearts.
8pm: The French team win the haka. (They do this by wearing a distracting sequence of red, white and blue tee-shirts which we all buzz about when we see them and thus we miss shooshing down to hear the Maori challenge)
8.01pm: The game starts, New Zealand fumble the kick off. Is this a portent of things to come?
Keith Quinn at kqrugby07@hotmail.com
Check back with tvnz.co.nz on Friday afternoon for Keith's account of the fateful game and aftermath.
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