I arrived back at Heathrow at just after 0600 last Saturday and after a dash down the M3 I was firmly planted on the sofa, fighting the jet lag whilst watching the teams bellow out their respective anthems in the International Stadium in Yokohama. I am not going to even attempt to argue that England should have won the match. Despite their heroics in the semi-final they came off distinctly second best. It wasn’t for lack of effort, or training, or preparation, or passion for that matter. They were just outplayed on the day, but they can emerge from the experience with their heads held high. They have done us all proud but it just didn’t happen for them on the day. That’s sport. It’s also worth bearing in mind that Sam Underhill (England’s No7) was playing Rugby for Sir Thomas Rich’s, Gloucester a very few years ago; he would have taken on some of the best from BWS, as we habitually play STRS annually at the start of the Autumn season. Sam was undoubtedly one of the stars of the England World Cup Team, and there will be BWS boys who would have been on the receiving end of some of that tackling!
Having said that I must confess that I wasn’t disappointed by the outcome of a game of Rugby which was hyped to the usual frenetic level. Sport sometimes transcends the mere competition on the pitch, and that was particularly true in this case. As England lined up to face the RSA Team I was conscious of the background of the team from the Southern Hemisphere and how the players symbolised the progress that has been made in the last 25 years. A truly multi-racial team with a non-white captain whose origins lay in Zwide, an impoverished district of the Eastern Cape. Victory for England would be the icing on the cake, would no doubt help to drive Rugby development throughout the length and breadth of our country and would (no doubt) channel more funding into player development, for both genders, at all levels. If South Africa emerged victorious it had the potential to do so much more than that as we are into the realms of nation building, healing the wounds of racial division and inequality and enabling youngsters to see a way out of absolute poverty. It was striking to hear that Siya Kolisi’s family were based in a Port Elizabeth township, and the last time that RSA won the Webb Ellis Trophy Kolisi had to watch the match at a tavern – there was no TV at home. As Tom Fordyce said on the BBC, ‘this is a kid from nowhere who hopes to go where none have gone before’.
So yes, I am glad that I made it back to see the game, I enjoyed the adrenaline of the 80+ minutes and I felt desperately sad for those English players that had worked so hard and come so far over the past 4 years. I know only too well what it feels like to be on the losing side in a major final, albeit spectating at a schoolboy level. But in my heart of hearts I felt that it was the right result for all the right reasons, and my hope is that the afterglow of such an achievement now makes some difference to the lives of many more South Africans, whether they are fans of the oval ball or not.
SDS
