Friday 18th
September was a big day in the world of Rugby Union. The 8th
installment of the Rugby World Cup was starting on this day. This was a big day
for me personally as well as I was going to my first RWC game. When I woke up
on Friday, I was up very early in the morning, almost like a child on Christmas
Day. I often get excited when going to Twickenham to watch England (or Bath).
The atmosphere at Twickenham is just something special and if you could bottle
it and sell it, you would be a very rich person.
I was going to the game with a friend, and we had decided
long before the start of the tournament that we wanted to guarantee going to at
least one game at the RWC. By at least game, I mean one game that is
geographically sensible and a match that we both wanted to see. I put in for 9
games when it came time to enter the ballot and got nothing (which on
reflection, I wish I’d put in for any ticket to be in the stadium for South
Africa v Japan yesterday – hindsight remains 20/20). So the best way we thought
to guarantee a ticket for a game we both wanted to go to would be to go via the
England Rugby Travel Agent. You pay significantly over the odds for the ticket
but it can also include travel or a hotel depending on the package you opt for.
Considering they offered a day return coach package for the game at the
reasonable price of £280pp (!), we opted for that. The ticket you get in that
package would have cost £75, so the rest of the deal cost £205. I resolved it
was probably best not to think about that and just enjoy what was going to be
an ace day.
The journey up to Twickenham was fairly uneventful aside
from one unfortunate incident when we made a stop at a service station. I didn’t
see what occurred but when leaving the station, there was an older woman sat in
a chair, bleeding from her nose (I think) and a significant pool of blood on
the floor. It turns out she had gone to stand up on her crutches, slipped and
fell face first onto the concrete. She was being well tended to and am
ambulance was being called as I left. I didn’t do anything but at the point I
arrived, there was nothing to be done. We pulled onto the A316 and made our
approach to Twickenham when we started to see coaches parked on the sides of
the road. We were yet to see the stadium and I found myself wondering if this
was going to be the coach park. I seem to recall on previous visits there were
coaches parked by the west stand, so to see them here surprised me. We drove
further down the A316 until we could see Twickenham. It was at this point that
we turned around and drove nearly 2 miles back down the road where the coach
parked. I will admit, having paid so much for the package, I was a bit miffed
that the coach had parked so far away from the stadium.
We arrived just before 5pm and after the walk to get back
close to the stadium, it was too early to be in the stadium. So in order to
avoid paying stadium prices for beer, the next location was a nearby off
licence for a few drinks (and a samosa) before heading into the ground. The
atmosphere already was buzzing and I was quite surprised seeing fans of many
different nations walking towards the ground. After a few cans of Lech (free
plug), we headed into the stadium in order to take our place for the opening
ceremony and the game. My seat was in the west stand, but very close to the
corner of the north stand. As a result, we had a rear view of the opening
ceremony which looked like it was going to be quite good. There was a giant,
old school looking rugby ball sticking out the middle of the pitch with raised
turf all around it. All in all, I would have to say for the time allowed, I
think the opening ceremony was as good as it could have been. There was a serious
moment of awkwardness before the ceremony started. Sat in the row in front of
me, 2 seats to my right was a black man wearing what looked to be an old Fiji
shirt (white jersey with 2 thin blue hoops going round). The people next to us
for reasons unknown had a Fiji flag in its wrapping, and got the guys attention
and gave him the flag, thinking he was a Fiji fan. After looking confused for a
bit, one of the party turned to me and said “I hope he is from Fiji, otherwise
this gesture could be considered casual racism”. Sure enough, the white shirt
the guy was wearing was an RAF rugby shirt, and the guy sounded as though he
was from the Birmingham area (I think) with no links to Fiji whatsoever. The
party who handed the guy the flag all looked terribly embarrassed at this point
but the guy laughed it off and made jokes about it throughout the match. Very
awkward indeed, but it really could have been a lot worse!
The game itself was very enjoyable at times, and very
frustrating at other times. We played well in the first half with a few errors
creeping in, but we had two tries on the board and seemed as though if we
continued to build, a bonus point try would be coming soon. The second half was
a tougher watch from an England perspective as we started to struggle to build
a platform. This was noticed by the block next to ours, full of French people
who started singing songs about France and cheering on Fiji. The game turned
back in England’s favour after the replacements came on, and England got their
bonus point try, although it came right at the very end of the gamer. It was
not the best England performance you will ever see, but if the target objective
was to come away from this game unscathed injury wise and get 5 points, then
job done. Mike Brown was definitely deserving of his MOTM nod.
The game finished just before 10pm and we had just over an
hour to get back to the coach. Instead of messing around, we headed straight back
there (via a food stand for a bottle of water). We arrived back at the coach
for 10.35pm and relaxed a bit then, knowing we had made good time.
Unfortunately, even though we were due to leave at 11pm, we didn’t. People
arrived back at the coach late and held us up. On reflection, I was annoyed,
but even though we left at 11.30pm, we still got back to Portsmouth nearly
30mins earlier than we were scheduled to, which is nice.
And so that is the opening day of the Rugby World Cup from
where I was sitting. It was a great day out. I’m now going to be looking forward
to more rugby as it comes on. The RWC takes a two day break now, but there are
3 games on Wednesday, with Scotland and Australia in action for the first time.
I remain hopeful there will be more magic like we witnessed on Saturday with Japan
upsetting the Springboks. What a game that was and what a tournament we have
had so far. Hopefully, it will only get better,
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