Saturday, 28 October 2023
My 27th match, and the 48th one of the tournament, was the final between New Zealand and South Africa in Paris.
I had walked to the Saint Denis Basilica prior to the match -- details to follow in the eventual post for Day 52 -- so I walked from there to the stadium around 5:30 p.m. to meet Justin and his family again at one of the bars near the grounds. I found them at a table not far from where we were last night and we hung out there until it was time to enter the stadium. It wasn't quite as loud as last night's location, so I was able to have more conversations. I realize now who Ashley's voice reminds me of -- Nigel Owens, the great Welsh rugby referee.
I went in and found my seat at about 7:45. In addition to the usual pre-match activities, this time they had a musical act perform, in the corner of the stadium, for about ten minutes before the teams took the field. It's interesting to me how that differs from the Super Bowl using halftime for this, and doing it on the field. That makes the Super Bowl halftime stretch to thirty minutes or more. Whereas rugby protects the integrity of the players and the game and does the promotional stuff only before and after, not during.
Another good seat. Up high in the south end. High enough that even with the wind, it is out of the rain. The seat to my left was empty, and a railing and walkway were right in front of me, so I wasn't packed in too tightly.
 |
| Continual rain |
 |
| The view from my seat |
 |
| Pre-match selfie |
 |
| The national anthems |
 |
| The haka. Again, my camera seems to have blurred it in an oil-painting style |
The first half featured both a yellow card and a red card for New Zealand, so South Africa had a man advantage for twenty of the forty minutes. It was a lot of kicking back and forth, hoping the other team would make a mistake. South Africa kicked a penalty in the third minute to go up 3-0, and some more penalty kicks got us to a halftime score of 12-6 in favor of South Africa.
New Zealand kept up some pressure in the second half. They appeared to have scored a try early in the half, but it was called back upon review because of a forward pass. They did, however, score a try a few minutes later. (Some would say that one should have also been called back upon review.) But they missed the conversion that would have put them ahead. 12-11 for South Africa after 59 minutes.
South Africa's Cheslin Kolbe was sent off with a yellow card in the 73rd minute for an intentional knock-on. Even from the 69th row I could see how anguished he was at the thought of leaving his team at 14 players for the remainder of the match. New Zealand missed the penalty kick that they were awarded for the intentional knock-on. That's two missed kicks in a row -- either of them would have given them the lead.
The last seven minutes was intensely fought. New Zealand trying to get into position to score, and South Africa trying to hold them away. The final whistle blew, and South Africa had prevailed, 12-11. The fact that it was close the whole time, and within six points for all but four minutes of the match, was wonderful. The atmosphere in the stadium was awesome. I had a batch of RSA folks behind me, and a row of NZL dudes in front of me, and they were good-naturedly ribbing each other the whole time. (Contrast that with any match involving England. The England fans are more obnoxious.)
 |
| South Africa fans celebrating? Or New Zealand fans who lost a bet? |
South Africa won their last three games each by a single point. It doesn't really get any closer than that.
Part of me wanted to stay and watch the awards ceremony. And part of me wanted to head right back to the hotel because I'll have to get up at 5:30 in the morning. I decided to stay, and I'm glad I did. While it was hard to watch the New Zealand players getting their silver medals, the joy of the South Africa team and fans was quite something to behold.
Then I turned in ten of the eleven cups I had gathered. (They only allow ten at a time, so I kept one as a souvenir.) Followed by a walk back to the hotel in the rain. When I got to the hotel, a guy about my age and his three daughters walked in right behind me. We all shared the elevator. He asked me if I had just been to the rugby match. Yep. They had, too. When I told them it was the last of my 27 matches, the father said he was impressed, and asked one of his daughters to unzip her jacket. I was trying to figure out the right way to say "Dude, I don't know where you're going with this, but it doesn't feel right" when he showed me that the jersey she was wearing was one that he had from the first Rugby World Cup in 1987. "I was at that first World Cup", he said. Very cool. We didn't have a chance to talk much more because had arrived at my floor. As I stepped out of the elevator, he said "Well done you." It took a moment for me to process his accent and then parse it into a sensible sentence, but I smiled and thanked him once I had.
...doug
No comments:
Post a Comment