Andy
Chris
Chuck
Dan
Jonas
Louise
Mike N.
Mike S.
Rhys
Ryan Mc.
Ryan Mu.
Dervala
ChrisMongolia
JoeAndGill
Tony
Vagabonding
The weather held out for the game last night (meaning it was just bloody cold), but just when I started to get a grasp of the rules it was over- All Blacks: 15, Ireland: 6. Read all about it at nzrugby.com. These two teams have been playing each other for 97 years and the All Blacks have won every single time. But according to all the Kiwis sitting around me, Ireland definitely deserved the victory, and it was a boring game. Sure, I guess I agree with them, there could have been a lot more action, but this being my first rugby experience, I see nothing but potential in future viewings. Forget American Football- these blokes don't wear any pads, and they hit hard...
More interesting than the NZ/Ireland rivalry, however, was the All Blacks' lineup- 13 out of 15 players from Canterbury (punditry here), which happens to be Otago's main sporting rival. Check it out on a regional map. For those of you back home (what the weather's currently like here in Dunedin), it's similar to Michigan/OSU, or for anyone anywhere else in the world, it's your standard (read: no point whatsoever) rivalry.
So the crowd is a local crowd, a large majority being drunken students from Otago University, and the AB's coach loads up the lineup with the enemy... Thus we heard "OH-TAAG-OH" chanted over and over by 20,000 fans each time the Canterburians (is that a word?) messed up, calling for the insertion of the All Black Otago players into the action. Sport fans are a hard bunch. (Yes, "sport" in the singular rather than my familiar "sports" in the plural. Must be a commonwealth-ism...)
Posted by Eric at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
"May all beings be happy."
Vipassana meditation.
Shwedagon Pagoda,
Yangon,
Burma
January 3rd, 2003
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© 2003 Eric Case.