Moaning about greenies ? Forget it...

...this cup; The Webb Ellis Trophy, will dominate our consciousness for 6 weeks, and the panic and the passion of it all will mean very little blogging from me during that time. Panic ? why's that ? Because yikes, we might not win ! never mind, we here in NZ are going to have a GREAT TIME and forget about life for a while...Here's some UK comment about the tournament, and I couldn't have put it better myself... a pleasing, recognisable rhythm develops. Rugby fans know what to expect from their World Cup because rugby’s world is a small one. The organisers may bang on about the event’s universality, with 20 teams spread across all five continents, but, essentially, it is a bruising reunion of old mates, the familiarity of the opposition somehow adding to its comfortable allure. Rugby folk know that the Australians and South Africans, the two teams to have won twice, will be implacable. They expect to see the New Zealanders choke, hilariously, on suffocating national expectation; to see the French being magnifique one second and merde the next; and to see the English flirting dangerously with antidotes to the usual under-performance of their football counterparts...and through it all, many lefties here in NZ remain a little aloof, seeing rugby as a bit infra dig, legalised thuggery if you like, and an AB victory as more votes for John Key so they try to pretend it's not happening. For the rest of us though, it's game on ! To all my UK cousins and friends (some of whom are in NZ in camper vans following Wales) and to all bemused observers elsewhere a small hint. Here in NZ, a RUCK is when the ball is lost from sight but on the ground. A MAUL is when the ball is elsewhere, perhaps lost for good, somehow being moved back or held by (one of our) players under his jersey. But don't worry about it at all, or get pedantic about the game ... enjoy the action and Party On ! More UK comment here... And, pour moi ? preferences ? with cloth cap on now...I were born upp noorth in Preston, so c'mon the Poms ! Me Mum were Welsh, so Cmryu am byth, c'mon the Taffies ! I lived as a single man in Sydney and love the place and its inhabitants, so Go Aussie ! but of course when push comes to shove, in the ruck or the maul or anywhere else it's AB's to win !