As the teams start to arrive in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup kicking off on the 9th I am starting to think about my own trip down to the land of the long white cloud and the surprises that it has in store for me and J.
With Ireland's performances in the warm-up games a bit below power to say the least you would probably forgive me in saying that on Saturday evening my thoughts started leaning towards how I was going to come back from the World Cup and face my mates questioning and mocking me about why for the second successive tournament Ireland were knocked out at the group stages. This is not unrealistic when you consider that we have the Tri-Nations champions Australia in our group along with an Italy team that run us very close in the 6 Nations and if we get beat by these two teams then we would find it very difficult to progress out of the pool!
With all this in mind I spent Saturday night in the company of good friends with very little talk of the game which had taken place earlier that day and this I think was a good thing. I woke on Sunday a bit bleary-eyed and proceed to read the match reports and watch the interviews from Saturdays game and, to me anyway, it seemed that just like the rest of us the media, the management and the team itself were a bit taken aback by what had happened. Is this the same group of players who in March completely out classed the same team, England, in the same stadium? The answer quite simply is yes, and that is why we were all so shocked.
As the day progressed I started to get a few texts from J asking if I had received the parcel he had sent to me with my World Cup goodies in it, I hadn't at this stage so my excitement began to go up a bit thinking about the "kit" that was about to arrive along with e-tickets, full tour schedule etc. To be honest, I was starting to feel, in my head at least, a bit like one the 30 guys selected to play for Ireland in the World Cup it self.
Monday morning arrived and I nipped downstairs to the concierge to see if they were there to pick up my stuff and to my delight they were! I rushed back up to my apartment and ripped into the box to revel the goodies inside. There was a t-shirt, a polo shirt, a fleece, waterproof coat and a beanie hat, all with the official Rugby World Cup branding on them inside a neat little kit bag. All the kit was matching and seeing it all laid out on my sofa I could help but think that I was part of a team!
The team I am part of has a massive part to play, just like the Ireland back-room staff look after the players every needs helping them focus solely on the game at hand. I am part of the Ireland travelling support, people from all over the country (and in my case London) coming together to make the trip to the other side of the world to cheer on our team. When Ireland step out on to the pitches in New Plymouth, Auckland, Rotorua and Dunedin it will be our job to make sure that each of those stadiums becomes an Ireland home game! We are there to represent out country as people as well and even though we have come off the back of a few bad results we can just take a look at the positivity shown by the players as something to lift us!
A lot has happened to me in the past week and in another weeks time I will have reached D-Day and along with a few others will be heading to Heathrow airport were I will meet my travelling companions each of us making the trip for their own reasons but all with the one goal in mind, to make sure our boys in green get the best damn support that any travelling Ireland team have had anywhere!
COME ON IREALND!
With Ireland's performances in the warm-up games a bit below power to say the least you would probably forgive me in saying that on Saturday evening my thoughts started leaning towards how I was going to come back from the World Cup and face my mates questioning and mocking me about why for the second successive tournament Ireland were knocked out at the group stages. This is not unrealistic when you consider that we have the Tri-Nations champions Australia in our group along with an Italy team that run us very close in the 6 Nations and if we get beat by these two teams then we would find it very difficult to progress out of the pool!
With all this in mind I spent Saturday night in the company of good friends with very little talk of the game which had taken place earlier that day and this I think was a good thing. I woke on Sunday a bit bleary-eyed and proceed to read the match reports and watch the interviews from Saturdays game and, to me anyway, it seemed that just like the rest of us the media, the management and the team itself were a bit taken aback by what had happened. Is this the same group of players who in March completely out classed the same team, England, in the same stadium? The answer quite simply is yes, and that is why we were all so shocked.
As the day progressed I started to get a few texts from J asking if I had received the parcel he had sent to me with my World Cup goodies in it, I hadn't at this stage so my excitement began to go up a bit thinking about the "kit" that was about to arrive along with e-tickets, full tour schedule etc. To be honest, I was starting to feel, in my head at least, a bit like one the 30 guys selected to play for Ireland in the World Cup it self.
Monday morning arrived and I nipped downstairs to the concierge to see if they were there to pick up my stuff and to my delight they were! I rushed back up to my apartment and ripped into the box to revel the goodies inside. There was a t-shirt, a polo shirt, a fleece, waterproof coat and a beanie hat, all with the official Rugby World Cup branding on them inside a neat little kit bag. All the kit was matching and seeing it all laid out on my sofa I could help but think that I was part of a team!
The team I am part of has a massive part to play, just like the Ireland back-room staff look after the players every needs helping them focus solely on the game at hand. I am part of the Ireland travelling support, people from all over the country (and in my case London) coming together to make the trip to the other side of the world to cheer on our team. When Ireland step out on to the pitches in New Plymouth, Auckland, Rotorua and Dunedin it will be our job to make sure that each of those stadiums becomes an Ireland home game! We are there to represent out country as people as well and even though we have come off the back of a few bad results we can just take a look at the positivity shown by the players as something to lift us!
A lot has happened to me in the past week and in another weeks time I will have reached D-Day and along with a few others will be heading to Heathrow airport were I will meet my travelling companions each of us making the trip for their own reasons but all with the one goal in mind, to make sure our boys in green get the best damn support that any travelling Ireland team have had anywhere!
COME ON IREALND!
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