for those of you who don't know, the rugby world cup has just started. i just watched the first game between argentina and france (the host nation). against expectations, the argentinians won. i support neither team, but it was one of the best games i've ever seen. spectacular to say the least.our team, the springbokke have a very real chance of taking the cup this year. so all the readers of this blog, unless your team is playing, i expect you to support the bokke.
the picture above is of os du rand. he played in the 1995 squad that won the world cup and amazingly enough is in the 2007 squad that is just about to win the world cup.
I played rugby in college. Second row. I was good enough, but our team was very good. We went to the Bahamas to play in British tournaments and held our own. A great sport.
ReplyDeletethe US is taking it this year. first england then ... (the alarm goes off ... rubbing eyes and stretching, while waking up from a dream) oh, guess that was only a dream.
ReplyDeleteit is hard to compete when you country doesn't even show the major international on TV. I am struggling to find even the US matches on pay-per-view. I guess i will have to watch it on the internet.
i have hopes that the US will do to England what Argentina did to France. (i know just a dream).
i am really pulling for Wales since that us my wife's home team (and my father-in-law is visiting).
Cer Cymru
It's "...pause, engage", Dr Bongi. And the "crouch" is more a bend or a stoop. I see crouch as sitting on one's haunches as in passing the perennial stool while on a hike in the veld. As far as the France-Argentina match is concerned -
ReplyDeleteit equalled the organised chaos theme of the opening ceremony. (The latter was a refreshing alternative to the by now boring chorus line girls one sees at similar events.) The Argentinians won the game before the kick-off. I have yet to see rugby players exuding such emotion while singing their national anthem. The jovial Mr Spreadbury made strange rulings and on the other hand failed to make rulings.
(I see that England is taking on Dr Schwab's colonial American Eagles team later today.)
no way! springboks will choke against the wallabies, just like the proteas choked against australia in the cricket world cup. sorry to be a downer, but we all know australia will win.
ReplyDeletesid, great sport, yes!!!
ReplyDeletesomeone, i see the us actually scored a try against england. us south africans interpret that as england being no threat to us. sorry. i find it amazing that you can't get it on tv there. a national team is at a world cup and it seems they have little support from home. our team's last stop before they left was the president's office. in france they visited mandela who happened to be there at the time.
anonymous, yes you're right, but i suppose i'm thinking back to the 'crouch and hold, engage' days. it's getting a bit too complicated for a front row to remember these days. i like your description of a crouch. we knew it as a boskak.
next anonymous, i personally think the only threat to the boks is the all blacks and after their ok-ish performance against italy, i think we can take them. i didn't see the game that austrailia played yesterday, but my brother down under sent me a message saying that george is not the smallest man on the field for the first time in his life. he is the 16th smallest.
bongi, i did get to watch the match with my father-in-law. we both cheered when the US scored their try. we call that a win seeing that 2/3 of the team are considered amateurs and we didn't concede the bonus point like our neighbors conceded to Wales (to my father-in-laws delight) ... i have a feeling south africa is going to put a good ole fashion beating on us. oh well
ReplyDeleteDr Bongi, I like you more and more. Let's hope you are right about the Bokke. :-)
ReplyDelete