The Last Pool Weekend - Sunday

We slept in until ten as a result of yesterday's big timetable.  But today's timetable promised to be something else. The schedule for Sunday was a friendly match at noon at the club between the visiting Port Alberni Black Sheep (Vancouver Island, BC, Canada) and Pirates timed to immediately precede the All Blacks - Canada match, followed by the Argentina v Georgia match and the first half of New Zealand vs Canada at the club, then off to the city centre mid-afternoon to soak up some atmosphere in the Octagon, watch the first half of Wales vs Fiji in the Dunedin Town Hall Fan Zone, march down the streets to the stadium, watch Ireland vs Italy at the stadium, bus back to Pirates, nightcap and home. And that was what happened in a nutshell, bar a lot of singing, shouting and horsing about.

Very quiet Irish fans

We arrived at Pirates at lunchtime to find some fairly hung over Irish fans from the campervan park next door ordering sausage sandwiches and nachos at the kitchen hatch while the Port Alberni Black Sheep team was outside on the pitch cooking up a storm against a Pirates scratch team that at one stage asked Mike if he was interested in booting up(!) While Mike was outside encouraging the home team, Fi made ready for the Argentina - Georgia match by donning her red  Georgian scarf, nursing her pint of Buccaneer and waiting. Four male Argentinian fans appeared at the kitchen hatch and there was audible giggling and intake of breath that an infidel Georgian supporter dared to be in the house. More Argentinian fans appeared so Fi moved to sit opposite their table of ten and then surprised the bejasus out of the 20 hungover Irish fans and the ten Argentinian fans by bursting on-cue into an emphatic rendition of the Georgian national anthem. The Pumas fans, thus challenged, countered with a very creditable blast of their own anthem and the game started. In the middle of the first half, the Vancouver Island visitors had beaten the Pirates by a diplomatic three points and the players retired inside for presentations and other manly rituals in back rooms unobservable by the masses (especially female masses).   Drew (a very self assured 5 year old) had a T-shirt with a Canadian flag on it.  The Black Sheep's tour manager made signing it a condition of getting to the showers (and beer), so Drew now has the first of what will probably be a large collection of rugby memorabilia.

Port Alberni players (in grey) chat with a Pirate

At half-time, Georgia was in the lead by two points, the shell-shocked Pumas fans had retired to the stadium area to lick their wounds and the Irish fans were dazed. We whipped out the face paints and instantly had requests to paint Drew and Georgia (8) in the Georgian colours of red and white. Despite this local support, Georgia was unable to hold the Argentinian attack and went down 25-7, ending their campaign with one win over Romania and a big win over the hearts and minds of the NZ communities they played in.

Then Mike set to and painted a tricolour on Fiona's face and made alterations to her Irish stetson, in preparation for the game that night.  The NZ vs Canada game started in predictable fashion and soon NZ was stacking up a cricket score.  The Canucks fought bravely, but the difference in skill and speed was too much for them.  By the time we left at half time, the All Blacks had already scored five tries.  The final score was 79 - 15, but the encouraging aspect for all non-kiwis was that the All Blacks let in two tries.

We trotted down the road to the holiday campervan park and jumped on one of the special buses to the stadium.  Ten minutes later, we disembarked in the city centre and walked to the Octagon - full to the brim with supporters, 90% of whom were Irish or supporting Ireland.  It was party time, big time.

There was no hope of getting into a bar (see below) and we had three quarters of an hour to kill before the Wales - Fiji game started, so we managed to get a seat at a large table in Cafe Nova, next to the Dunedin Art Gallery.  Coffees arrived and soon after, two couples at the bar asked if they could join our table.  Jocelyn and her partner were from Perth (small world), and Sue and her partner were from Oamaru.  When we mentioned that we intended to visit the Steampunk exhibition there in a couple of weeks time, we discovered that Sue was one of the League of Victorian Imagineers, responsible for the introduction of Steampunk to the town.  So we'll meet up with them later in our holiday, when we go to see the 2011 Steampunk Exhibition.

We bid farewell to the the table and headed into the Fan Zone for a dose of Wales vs Fiji.  This was a match that had been widely speculated about, as there was a perception that Wales' style of rugby was vulnerable to the South Pacific style.  Samoa had beaten Wales twice at previous RWCs and Fiji drew 11 all with them earlier in the year.  Whatever the perception, it was incorrect.  Wales played an excellent game and their young winger, George North, was very impressive.  By half time Wales was well ahead, so having learnt our lesson about how long it takes to get to the stadium from the centre of town last time, we headed out of the door and marched through streets crowded with Irish and Italian supporters.  I had changed into my Wallabies jumper (to indicate strict neutrality in the coming game) and Fi
 

So at 7 pm we moved out into the Octagon  and up George Street towards the stadium, encountering loads of ebullient Irish supporters, many of them searching out the Italian fans and running up to them and giving them a big hug and a load of craic. There were all sorts of costumes, hats, flags, paint jobs, accoutrements and laughter. Mike was "attacked" twice, once when he was carrying the Irish flag, by a harmless drunk who wanted a hug and later by three Irish guys who slagged him coming out of the portaloo for wearing a Wallabies jumper. There were leprechauns climbing trees,  people carrying upturned boats, people dressed fit to kill, but mostly people just skipping along the street in high old form, looking forward to a great night out:

So when we finally got into the stadium and took our seats three rows from the front, the atmosphere was at fever pitch ten minutes before the teams were due out. When the NZ Army Band finished its set and the traditional Maori welcome horn was sounded, the stadium erupted as the teams appeared in the tunnel. There were 28000 fans in the stadium (a sell-out) of whom clearly 20000 were Irish or Kiwi-Irish. The singing of the Irish anthem was just unbelievable, the roof of the stadium was nearly lifted clear off.

Stadium panorama, green, green, green except for the blue bits

St Johns ambulance man snaps Ulster boys

West stand goes mad, a sea of green

Once the game started, the crowd broke into the traditional chants of "oiir-land, oiirr-land" and "ole, ole, ole, ole". The crowd support would have been easily worth ten points to the Irish during the match.

It was a fast-paced match with lots of niggle throughout and some contentious decision making by the referee Jonathan Kaplan. It was an evenly balanced first half with the Irish in the lead at half time by three points.



Ireland completely dominated play at the start of the second half and despite a stolid fightback by the Italians in the last fifteen minutes of the match, the boot of O'Gara and tries by Earls and O'Driscoll overwhelmed the Azzurri and the Irish won comprehensively by 36 - 6.


The Irish went completely nuts at the end, stamping and clapping and singing Fields of Athenry and the Irish team went around the pitch perimeter to thank the fans. Many of the Azzurri were in tears as the result meant they would be flying home tomorrow.

So we all filed out of the stadium, waving flags, singing and calling out and we caught the bus back to the campervan park and walked back up the road to Pirates. Seeing that the lights were still on at 11:15 pm, we ventured in for a nightcap and a quick dissection of the days events over a pint of Buccaneer. Irish fans were still trailing in when we left shortly before midnight. Then it was up the hill and off to neverneverland.