The fact that I was too cheap to fork over the bucks necessary to acquire the 2007 Rugby World Cup television package meant that a bit of ingenuity was required to keep up to speed with the ebb and flow of the various national-team matches currently taking place upon the hallowed pitches of France and Wales.
No doubt, once the quarterfinals get under way, the viewing opportunities currently being provided by “Charlie’s Place,” the private club over at The Yarrow, will become too enticing to ignore. For some reason, however, the normal allure of Park City is not pulling me out of my Heber comfort zone as often as it once did.
But this is rugby we’re talking about elegant violence at its most pristine. Not that I’m surprised that ESPN is in total denial concerning the sport. I suppose that if the USA Eagles were faring better and had a chance of advancing to the next round, then, just maybe, the sports channel might think to sandwich a highlight or two between bowling and bass rasslin’.
Well, thank heaven for the Internet. What would we cheapskates do without it? Take the other day, for instance. All that stood between my Ireland side and a quarterfinal berth were Le Bleus, the host French team that had stumbled somewhat inexplicably in their Cup opening match with Argentina. Being all in a lather over the impending get-together and jonesin’ to talk some heavy trash with any fans who might wish ill upon my Irish, I immediately dashed off a relatively rude e-mail to Muffin-of-Bordeaux.
Back during the golden ’70s, Muffin held forth up on Sandridge Avenue and, amongst other mischief, set an as-yet-unbroken winning streak in local wet T-shirt competitions. The responsibility of first introducing Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to Park City, and vice versa, also lay at her doorstep.
But, alas, Muffin, who expatriated to Bordeaux years back, wouldn’t take the bait and responded with nothing more than “Allez les bleus!!!!” Quickly selecting the “French-to-English” option of my onboard translation software, I found it to be not much more than a cheer like “sis-boom-bah” or “boola boola” or “push ’em back, push ’em back.” “Go les bleus,” it said. Well, drat!
Having followed the World Cup matches so far by mostly reading free online rugby sections in the New Zealand Herald, The Australian, and the London Times and after having been rebuffed by the Irish Times I went lurking for someway of following the Ireland v. France match in real time.
Stumbling upon an Irish Web site that offered both “text” and “audio,” I somewhat patiently awaited for the ball to be put into play. The audio featured a radio station with a pleasantly-upbeat DJ programming a rather quaint playlist of “adult contemporary” recordings from a decade or so back.
No doubt they would be switching over to the rugby match once play got underway. However, according to the textual updates anyway, the match was indeed afoot with the radio station showing absolutely no sign of cutting away.
The Irish lout at the keyboard wasn’t in the business of sugarcoating what he saw as uninspired play from the lads and, as he spun his tale of lackadaisical miscues, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to admit that, as they say, I got my Irish up.
Penalty kick after penalty kick split the French uprights and, although the Irish remained within striking distance into the second half, you could sense impending doom.
Even changing from my once-considered-lucky national-team jersey into an equally-green traditional Irish music shop T-shirt failed to recharge the lads or, for that matter, the leprechauns they rode in on. The switch may have been the intervening variable, however, that proved to motivate the rugby-clueless DJ to slip on some Van Morrison.
Spurred on by the halftime notion that the somewhat incomprehensible Gaelic verbiage emblazoned across the front of the shirt might bring on a change of fortune, hopes remained undashed. But, suffice to say, once the referee whistled that time had expired, the French were on top 25-3. Double drat! So it goes!
So, with Ireland more than likely and the Eagles absolutely for sure not advancing, my attention switches almost totally to the southern-hemisphere sides especially the New Zealand All Blacks, the Australian Wallabies and the South African Springboks.
You wouldn’t expect that a poor sport like myself would ever root for the Brits or the Frogs now, would you? Possibly I could cheer-on Scotland or Wales and maybe, if they were matched against defending champion England or France, Carole Fontana’s Italy squad.
Much of the excitement in this year’s battle for the Webb Ellis Trophy has come from the island nations of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. Even in defeat, they have overachieved every step of the way. The opposite side of that coin has had the All Blacks, Wallabies, and Springboks go undefeated, but, although they’ve certainly had their blow-outs, often in a lackluster fashion.
So far it’s looking like New Zealand, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa will handily win their individual “pools” and advance to the quarterfinals. The rest of the bracket will be filled by the winners of this week’s matches between England and Tonga, Wales and Fiji, and Scotland and Italy.
France should easily best Georgia and advance. Even should they stumble, Ireland would have to somehow prevail over undefeated Argentina to continue on and I wouldn’t bet “grandfar’s shillelagh” on that happening. One should never forget, however, that it wouldn’t be the first time “the luck of the Irish” has turned the highly-improbable on its head.