Wednesday 3 October 2007
Continued west from Narbonne intending to stay the night at a “camping” at Le Grau De Roi on the Mediterranean coast a little southeast of Montpellier. Although the “camping” was open everything else (except McDonalds) was closed “for the winter”. The Prop, incensed by the insensitivity of the locals to the needs of the travelling Rugby public determined to move on. Much to the delight of the Prop’s wife, we travelled through the Camargue – an extensive delta lying between the petit Garonne and the Garonne rivers and made legendary to the Prop’s wife by her Swiss born former high school French teacher. Noted for its flocks of flamingos, small white ponies and bulls all but the latter were on open display. Eventually stopped the McRent Reisemobil at “Camping de la Crau” at Saint Martin de Crau (and just a few kilometres from a town called La Dynamite! No idea what they make there or why it’s called by that name. The Prop briefly toyed with the thought of including La Dynamite as a stop in the “Dangerous Tour of Europe” but eventually thought better of it and decided to give the place a wide berth.
Thursday 4 October 2007
Having established that there were no “campings” within a bull’s roar of Marseille, the McRent Reisemobil set a course for “Camping Les Cigales” in Cassis – about 20 km southeast of Marseille. With no particular expectations, the Prop and his wife were delighted to discover that Cassis is beautiful seaside resort town nestled among “les Calanques” (a series of precipitous rocky inlets). Spent the afternoon wandering around the waterfront as increasing numbers of Australians (many familiar from previous encounters), Englishmen and South Africans descended upon the town. Spent the evening and some part of the early hours of the next day at the bar in the “camping” discussing the finer points of rugby union with sundry Australians including a particularly enthusiastic couple who turned out to be the parents of Wallaby winger Drew Mitchell! Also finally managed to have a drink with Allan Fong and Suzy Fiddaman (see 12 September) who had been over to Cannes for the day and arranged a luncheon appointment with them in Marseille for the following day. It has to be said that the Prop stayed rather longer at the bar and discussed one or two too many finer points than a prudent man might have done. Considering what can only be described as the intimate sleeping accommodation available in the McRent Reisemobil, this later proved to be the cause of some friction between the Prop and his wife!!
Friday 5 October 2007
The Prop awoke to a fairly chilly atmosphere inside the McRent Reisemobil but was pleasantly surprised to find that the outside temperature was somewhat warmer. We decided to do a practice run on the bus from Cassis into Marseille in preparation for the journeys that will have to be made on Saturday and Sunday to get to the quarter final matches. The bus ride into Marseille is quite spectacular (and unnerving) in places. Apart from the port area around the old city, which is very picturesque, Marseille does not, at first blush, appear to have much to recommend it. It has a reputation (like many sea ports) as a haven for cloak and dagger merchants and, generally speaking, its appearance matches that reputation. An unpleasant odour (apparently emanating from the outdated sewerage system) pervades the air. Had a pleasant lunch with Fongy and Suzy (although Fongy’s lunch arrived about an hour after everyone else’s) and had a bit of a sniff (no pun intended) around the city. Caught the bus back to Cassis only to be involved in some sort of bus hi-jacking incident. It appears some fellow boarded the bus after it already had the maximum number of passengers. He refused to alight. The driver refused to drive the bus, turned off the engine (and the air conditioning) and began making numerous mobile telephone calls. Meanwhile, the supernumary passenger had become the focus of a good deal of gesticulation and apparently hostile badinage. He, for his part, responded in kind. After perhaps 10 minutes or so, one of the other passengers voluntarily alighted from the bus. This appeared to satisfy the driver who then resumed the journey! All very, very French!
Saturday 6 October 2007
Game day! Australia v England!! The sun dawned brightly over Cassis giving no indication of the dark clouds gathering on the near horizon. Set off by bus (no incidents this time, but lots of Pommy rugby fans on board) for the Stade Velodrome in Marseilles. By kickoff (3.00pm) the sun was high in the sky. Although Marseilles is well to the east of France, the whole country shares the same time zone. As a consequence sunrise is relatively late and at 3.00pm the sun is not much past the zenith. Apart from the heat, conditions were more or less ideal for a fast open game. There was a fresh breeze from the south which favoured Australia in the first half. However, unaccountably the Wallabies, instead of trying to play fast open rugby, apparently by design, attempted to take England on at their own style of game – 10 man rugby where the ball is kicked as much as possible to gain territory and to put the goalkicker within range to kick drop goals or, in the event of an opposition indiscretion, penalty goals. In the event, Australia were out-muscled up front by the English forwards and got much less than their fair share of possession. What ball the forwards did win was too often turned over in the rucks and mauls. In what was a lacklustre game all round (All of England’s points came from penalties kicked by the (almost) infallible Johnny Wilkinson) England escaped with a win 12 points to 10 with Australia scoring the only try of the match. Australia might have snatched a late victory with a last gasp penalty goal from what was an improbable position on the field because of the headwind but it was not to be. So for only the second time, Australia went out of the World Cup at the quarter final stage. But, as it happened, this was not to be the greatest surprise of the day. Four hours later in Cardiff, Wales, the red-hot favourites in the tournament, the All Blacks, took on the so far unimpressive French XV. France had lost their opening pool match to Argentina and had not otherwise impressed. New Zealand on the other hand had had enjoyed easy victories in all of their pool matches against generally weak opposition. (The only likely test for new Zealand in their pool matches could come from Scotland. But the Scots, having calculated that they would not defeat New Zealand, had fielded a “B” team against the All Blacks in order to rest a number of key players for their subsequent do or die pool match against Italy. So, with France looking a little out of sorts and the All Blacks appearing invincible – if a little short of recent hard match experience – the battle was joined. It would be unnecessarily cruel to say that New Zealand choked yet again. But the fact is, they never really got their rhythm going despite not looking like they would lose the match. However, in the second half the French, playing their predictably unpredictable style of rugby which seems to incorporate elements of ballet, bluff and all-in wrestling managed to overpower the All Blacks. The new Zealanders will complain for years to come that Michalak’s pass that set up the winning try was forward, but that will not alter the result or soothe the national tragedy for New Zealand! The unbackable All Blacks for the first time ever were bundled out (as they say in tennis circles) of the World Cup in the quarter finals! All in all, not a red letter day for the southern hemisphere.
Sunday 7 October 2007
The Prop awoke wondering if he had had a bad dream and if it was still Saturday after all! However a quick look around “Camping Les Cigales” at the dejected faces of the Aussies and (in only a minority of cases it must be said) the somewhat smug superiority of the English supporters, confirmed the worst. Very early on in the meticulous planning process which lay behind the Odyssey, the Prop had factored in the possibility that the Wallabies might lose their second pool match against Wales. If that had occurred, Australia would have played in the third quarter final and not the first. According (and not without some sense of betrayal) the Prop had cunningly obtained tickets to both the first and third quarter finals. As things turned out Fiji had beaten Wales and so had qualified for the third quarter final against South Africa. After Fiji’s relatively poor showing against Australia (see 23 September) their defeat of Wales (see 29 September) was thought to be something of an aberration and no-one seriously entertained the thought that Fiji might defeat the Springboks – even in the light of the many unexpected, not to say improbable results to that time. In the end though, Fiji fell short of their impossible dream by only a matter of millimetres. Having scored two consecutive tries in the space of two minutes in the second half to draw level while one man down, Fiji went just failed to ground the ball over the Springbok line for a third unanswered try which would have given them the lead with 15 minutes to play and very possibly the momentum to hold the Boks out. As it was, when the try was disallowed one sensed that the Fijians had (as Paul Keating once said) fired the last shot in the locker. Their heads (and their bundles dropped) and South Africa scored two late tries to run out unconvincing winners. Later that night Argentina surprised no-one by defeating Scotland to take the last semi-final spot. Perhaps the only surprise of the game was that Scotland managed to look like they had a chance of winning even as late as the 79th minute of the match.
Monday 8 October 2007
The Prop and his wife are now at a bit of a loose end. We have tickets to the first semi-final (England v France at Stade de France in Paris on Saturday 13 October) which we had hoped – nay, expected - would feature Australia. We could, no doubt, sell the tickets – probably for a handsome premium – to some surprised England supporter. On the other hand the prospect of a solid encounter in Paris involving the French at home (and who, the prop is bold enough to predict, will run rings around England) is too good to miss. So, with mixed emotions we farewelled Cassis and the many forlorn Aussies we had befriended there and programmed the McRent Reisemobil (which had lain more or less idle at Cassis for four days) to head north for Paris. The Prop insisted on an indirect rout route via Millau to see (and cross) the magnificent Viaduc de Millau – the longest and highest suspension bridge in the world. Having achieved that ambition we made for Camping Les Calquières at Sévérac-le-Château, a little north of Millau.
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