Rah Rah Rah!!
Saturday June 8, 2013
New Zealand All Blacks vs France at Eden Park
This is the moment I’d been waiting for, folks. I was so excited to see my second professional rugby match and this was a biggie. The All Blacks are New Zealand’s All-Star team and are respected world wide. On Friday night I just so happened to meet Alan (AJ) Whetton who played on the 1987 World Cup Team. He and his buddies couldn’t let me go to the game alone and who was I to question.
Jason lives in Gold Coast, Australia so he rented a car. Well, more like a roller skate. You should have seen these guys squeezed into the tiny car. Notice that the three of them cover 3/4 of the car.
The Roller Skate Car
Eden Park is a great venue and the crowd was crazy! Every one was dressed up, especially the French. My favorite costume was a Napolean type outfit and on the guy’s hat he had a giant baguette with pastries glued all around the sides. I cracked up. I tried to get a photo but he was jumping all around and it didn’t work.
They brought out the hot, hot heat for the pre-game.
Then it was time to rumble.
I sat next to a group of about 12 guys that worked together. Apparently a drug company (represented by 3 guys) was trying to sell one of their drugs to another company (represented by 9 guys) and they decided what better way to “work it” than by treating everyone to the All Blacks game. And “work it” they did. They all had custom made neck scarfs with All Blacks logo and the drug company logo, custom made shirts with logos, and the beers were flowing. The beers were sold in plastic bottles and they came in 4 packs bound by a plastic holder attached at the neck of each bottle. Each time any of the drug company guys got up these 4-packs of beer came back by the arm fulls. They could barely keep up! I offered assistance as needed.
During the match I found out that the guys next to me really didn’t care too much for rugby and were more interested in talking to me about the NBA playoffs. That sparked a conversation from the French fan in front of us. He was really proud to tell us that there are three Frenchmen playing for the NBA right now – Tony Parker and two other dudes, but we couldn’t understand his thick French accent. The guys next to me responded with a resounding “Allez les Bleus” because that was all the French they knew. When in Rome. Or New Zealand!
Often times the crowd at Eden Park would erupt with cheers and the guys next to me wouldn’t be paying attention so this happened:
Guy 1: “What happened?”
Guy 2: “I don’t know.”
They would both look around to see if fans in black were cheering or if fans in blue were cheering. If fans in black where cheering they would raise their beers high and give a “Woo hoo!” If the fans in blue were cheering, well, pretty much the same thing happened. It cracked me up!
The All Blacks won 23-13 with a very exciting try at the end. And that lead to a celebration at a pub with my new friends.
Too tall for a selfie!
K. Dana Morris 