It’s been a bizarre weekend. Australia lost to England. It’s not like that hasn’t happened before (more specifically four years ago at the final), it’s the circumstances surrounding it.
Mr Shallot and I arrived one hour before kick off (in case you’ve been living under a rock, I’m referring to the Quarter Finals of the Rugby Union World Cup) Saturday night at our local pub. It’s an Irish pub filled with people from both backgrounds. Deciding that it was unlikely that we would find a seat, we moved onto a local restaurant that was also screening the finals. The restaurant has a pub like feel to it though it also serves cocktails – very un-rugby.
We were given special treatment by one of the wait-staff who had looked after us at a previous World Cup watching extravaganza. Helped by being dressed in Wallabies jerseys, our support was fairly obvious. Also obvious was this wait-staff’s dislike for the English team.
While losing was a tragedy, the greater tragedy was that they ran out of VB on tap. Now VB can be drunk from a bottle but it just doesn’t seem right to drink VB that way at a restaurant. The only element of class that VB could ever get is being served in a glass. I like the contrast of the working beer in a nice clean glass at a restaurant. Something about that just appeals to me and also goes well with rugby. That said, if I were at home, it would be in a bottle in a stubby holder.
The next game was at 3am HK time and turned out to be NZ losing to France. Another tragedy and something that just can’t be explained. The only solace I had taken from England’s win was that they were to then be flogged by NZ. Looks like that won’t be happening and the final is now wide open.
So you’d think with two big games on Saturday night, and the nationalities involved, all the drinking facilities would be well-stocked. They weren’t. The other thing that wasn’t well stocked was the ATMs. Both had run out of money by Sunday and given that was the second time street markets were being held in Discovery Bay, the timing was quite unfortunate. The first time the markets were held, it was rained out so they haven’t had a good run so far.
However, I’m thinking this is actually a good sign. Both Australia and New Zealand had relatively easy runs into the Finals and now they’re out. England copped a hammering to South Africa (36-0) and France was beaten by Argentina in the first round and look where they both are now! Bodes well for the markets.
Ahh the Wallabies – so cruel – scored a try and gave away too many penalties. Stirling Mortlock’s face said it all.
On top of this, our pay tv service provider made a ‘cold visit’ to sell us more channels and sign a Chinese contract – that will be another blog – added to the whole bizarreness of the weekend!
* Thanks to U2 for the title to this blog.