Rhia: October 2011

This is a quick post to show you how we celebrated the most anticipated most exciting day of 2011 here in London. After weeks and months of prayers it only seemed appropriate to watch the fever reach its height at The Church.

Life here seemed to be consumed by the Rugby World cup. Many Saturday nights have been sacrificed so that we can get up in time to be bright eyed, ready for a 9am beer and The Big Game.

The AB's Straya semi was a big game - lots of nerves an worries, lets give it to them, the Australians play a good game of rugby and they were a real threat... However we of course pushed on through for an awesome 20-6 win!

We watched the semi final at The Church - a friend of a friend got us the best seats in the house and put on plenty of beers and drinks for us - Waiukuan's = Good people.

So we dominated the Australians, surely the final was ours? I think it was assumed that the boys in black would just have to show up on the day and the cup was ours... I have to give it to them the French had my knuckles white and my toes curled for a full 80 minutes... The last ten of which were spent praying (lucky we were in Church so I am sure God heard me loud and clear!) that we didn't let the French get a penalty.

Who would have though aye Mr Too-busy-catching-white-bait-to-talk-to-you-Mr-Henry scores us the point that wins the RWC 24 years in the making.

In the words of Katie Wilson, and I couldn't have put them better myself - If your're not overseas it's hard to understand how the anthem can pull at your heart or how the haka can bring tears to your eyes and give you chills all over. The world cup brought the Antipodeans together to the point where I actually could have been in a pub back home for the final. Its the sort of thing that makes stranger the best of friends if for just 80 minutes.

Some of the moments from the day....