Match 15 -- New Zealand v. Italy

Friday,  29 September 2023

My 15th match, and the 27th of the tournament, was New Zealand v. Italy in Lyon.

I tried a different approach and took the shuttle tram from just outside the main train station. It was not any less crowded. Even two hours before the match there were already hundreds of people in line. I still haven't found out how to buy shuttle tickets in advance, so I split off the main line to the "need to buy a ticket" line.

They had four people there with handheld credit card machines. I think the clerks were doing all they could, but maybe the connectivity was sketchy, because it was taking a minute or so for each transaction. (And they didn't take cash.) I decided to buy five shuttle tickets and gave the extra four to the next four people behind me in line. A 25 euro transaction doesn't take any more time than a five euro one, and it's certainly faster than three or four or five separate transactions. The New Zealand couple behind me was very appreciative. The husband even offered to send his wife to buy me a beer.  😀

The New Zealand couple and I then helped each other get to the stadium. When they were the last two through a checkpoint before it was cut off to wait for the next tram, they told the ushers that I was with them and got me through one batch sooner. I'm still trying to figure out who the guy reminded me of. The lady looked like Kathy Baker from Picket Fences. 

Italy is a tier one rugby nation (although pretty much at the bottom of tier one) so while I didn't expect them to win, I figured they'd make New Zealand work a bit. Nope. New Zealand won 96-17.

New Zealand warming up

National anthems. I seem to be on the opposite side of the player entrance nearly every match

Another least-bad photo of the haka

A few interesting bits of player trivia ... The New Zealand starting XV [rugby likes to use the Roman numerals when talking about the size of the team] included three brothers: Scott, Beauden, and Jordie Barrett. I thought this might have been the first time three brothers started in the same World Cup match. When I looked it up, I found that not only did the Barretts already do it in 2019, Tonga's Vunipola brothers did it in 1995.

When Sam Whitelock came on as a substitute early in the second half, he passed Richie McCaw to become the all-time leader in international appearances for New Zealand at 149. 

Another interesting thing about Sam Whitelock -- he's an example of what Tob and I call a "vocanym", and what I've seen more recently called "nominative determinism". It's the idea that some people have a name that fits their occupation. For Sam, it's part adjective and part noun. His rugby position is called "lock", and, well, he's white. If you know of others, tell us about them in the comments.

The return tram ride was just as crowded as when I took it to other locations, so my experiment didn't yield any improvement.  When the shuttle tram dropped me at the train station, it was about a block to the tram stop that would take me to the hotel. And I missed it by less than one minute. The next one was thirteen minutes out. I was very thirsty so I checked to see if any of the mini-marts in the train station were still open. Nope. There was a market a few blocks away but I wasn't sure I could get there and back in what was now about ten minutes. As it turned out, the next tram ended up being about five minutes late, so I would have had time. Instead, I took the tram about halfway back to the hotel, got off, walked a block to a mini-market, got an orange juice, walked on to the next tram stop, and got on the next tram. By the time I got to my stop and walked to the hotel, it was after 1:00 a.m.

...doug