The Last Pool Weekend - Friday and Saturday

What a weekend.  This was the last weekend of pool matches and promised to be a big one.  Three of the four pools had final standings decided on the last day, so intense matches were likely to be the order of the day.  In addition, we had the Port Chalmers Seafood Festival and an invitational match between Pirates and the visiting Port Albany Black Sheep club from British Columbia before the RWC festivities kicked off.

So we started Friday by joining in the NZ hobby of going up and down hills on foot.  There is a staircase that spans about half the vertical distance between ourselves and the Starfish cafe, and it is, natuarally, called Jacob's Ladder (given the number of places Jacob built his ladders, he must have been responsible for founding the first multinational corporation).  As going up and down steep hills appears to be a socially responsible phemonemon in NZ, we decided to conform to societal norms.  A leg shaking 20 minutes later, we stumbled into Starfish for coffee and cake before going back up.  On the way back up we were passed by 12 wheelchairs and two octogenarians using Zimmer frames.  Well not quite, but they probably could have made a good stab at overtaking us on the latter stages.  On getting back to the house, Fi headed off to the hairdresser in South Dunedin while I continued my research into which chair was the most comfortable in the lounge.

Hairdressing completed, we decided to test out the public transport system and caught the bus into town to have a couple of pints at the Albar (see Thursday's entry) before heading down to Pirates for South Africa vs Samoa.  A great arm wrestle of a match, but ultimately South Africa won 13 -5, although not convincingly.  We stayed around to chew the fat with some of the friends we've made at Pirates and it was way past pumpkin hour by the time we got home.

The Saturday Shop

 
Saturday dawned reluctantly so, somewhat bleary eyed, we set off for our weekly shopping trip to the Otago Famers Market at 8 am.  Full of Mou-Very coffee and cheese and ham crepes and fully stocked up again with meat and veg, we rushed home, unpacked and headed back into town at ten to catch the bus to Port Chalmers for the inaugural Seafood Festival.

The Seafood Festival was held in a large concrete shed and its surrounding dock space, right on the wharf under the massive cranes in Port Chalmers.  There was a vast array of stalls in the shed and vans on the wharf selling seafood, beer, wine, music, T-shirts, cheese rolls and ice cream.  After sampling the sights and the flavours, the crowd built up massively to some 6500 people, so we walked round to the Carey's Bay Hotel to have a pint of Emerson's before catching the bus back into town at two.

Port Chalmers Seafood Festival

 

Paella Pan

Salmon on ciabatta and Emerson's Southern Clam Stout - yum

Back in town, we headed into Pirates at three for the three RWC matches for today.  First up - Australia vs Russia with Australia sporting a fairly makeshift back line and extremely makeshift bench (one lock, one prop, two hookers and two scrum halves).  The match also provided a welcome return to David Pocock and the first half showed how essential a specialist open side flanker is to getting the side moving forward.  Australia made wholesale changes at half time and the second half got decidedly messy, but a convincing victory to Australia (68 -22) was the result.

Then came the upset result of the tournament.  Tonga took on France and beat them.  But for a French try in the 82nd minute, France would have missed out on the quarter finals.  A great result for Tonga which was well received by the Pirates crowd.

The final match of the night was England vs Scotland.  For the non-rugby afficionados, Scotland and England first played each other at rugby in 1871.  The trophy for this event is called the Calcutta Cup, as a result of the closing of the Calcutta Rugby Club in 1876.  The club funds were withdrawn in silver rupees, which were melted down to make the cup.  For more of the history, the Wikipedia entry has more details.  Anyway, this was a crucial match.  If Scotland won, they would go through to the quarter finals.  If they scored four tries and beat England by more than seven points, they would not only go through, but would also send England home!  And, in case you have forgotten, Dunedin was settled by the Free Scottish Church and was orignially called New Edinburgh.  To add to the atmosphere, the club was now packed to the rafters with Irish fans, who had arrived for Sunday night's match v Italy at Otago Stadium.  There was not a spare seat in the house.

It was a gripping match.  Scotland held the lead until England scored a try in the 77th minute to win 16-12.  Exhausted, we headed home and crashed, looking forward to the morrows twelve-hour rugby-thon.