When I left the office France were at least 6 points ahead having scored a try while already leading England in yesterday evening's semi final. I left expecting to see a good 20 minutes of the second half but bumped into Sue and her husband taking a head-clearing amble towards the river front. Sue had a bad day at work on Friday; she's brittle and nervy at the best of times but her supervisor seems to bring out the worst in her. Pete had taken her out for dinner and a bottle of wine to cheer her up.
I'm not sure what value to place on Sue's verdict on the new restaurant, given the bottle of wine she'd been through, but she was certainly enthusiastic.
That was a digression; I walked in with 8 minutes of the second half remaining and England only trailing by one point. When I catch up with the elder Watson brother I'm going to have a thing or two to say to him! And I'll never rely on him for a score update again.
Shortly after I walked in, the Slug a few feet from the television in a supplicatory pose, Jonny got a grip on his balls and put England ahead - then to show it wasn't a fluke he drop kicked to put England into next week's final.
I proposed in an earlier post a book on the number of pages the Sunday version of the paper would give over to coverage, should England win last night's match. Well making due allowance for it being a broad sheet while the weekday newspaper is tabloid (size) the answer is a staggering TWENTY SIX pages, not including the big photograph of guess who (is that all you've got?) on the front page plus almost all of pages 2 and 3.
That's the splendour of rugby. As far as the nation's media are concerned it is a sport that takes place only once every four years, but when it happens it puts on a bravura display such that those same media must relegate the round ball game to the back pages of the back pages.
After this World Cup is over rugger buggers will retire gracefully to the muddy paddocks of Gloucestershire and Somerset and Wiltshire and leave us in peace for four years. If only football had such fine manners.
And while I'm at it I've discovered that there are actually rules. This came as a bit of a shock and also something of a blow, if I'm honest, but a chap called Patrick Kidd did a little piece he called Rugby ... for beginners (Australians take note) so I did. I still won't follow what's going on next weekend - but as I would with a Die Hard film, I'll sit back and allow myself to be entertained by a preposterous display of organised mayhem and channelled testosterone. Cheers.
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