World Cup 2011 – Day 3

3 tries for me but still no wins… 

Up at 6am again this morning, then three of the hardest games of my life. And here I am after 2 am on Friday night alone in my little room writing this blog.

How tired do I look? Not as wrecked as I actually feel. I hope the two-and-a-half people who might be reading this appreciate my efforts!

So I just spent about forty minutes trawling through video footage from today. Three tries I scored, surely our dedicated camera captured one of them? Negative.

vs Spain

First match our chance of revenge against the Spanish. We were 6-4 up with five minutes to play and we managed to lose again. Pretty impressive.

This is the one bit of useable footage I found.

I honestly felt sick after, not for the first time this week and finally we (meaning I) just couldn’t hold it in and had to say something afterwards. It wasn’t quite a Roy Keane/Saipan moment but at least it wasn’t just me who felt we were underselling ourselves and the jersey. It’s such a team game and these are really good teams we are playing against. Anyway the good news is I wasn’t sent home in disgrace. Instead, we talked about it and had some man hugs afterwards. Lovely.

vs Scotland

Second match and we lost against Scotland after being ahead again. At least our spirit was better. As our cameraman didn’t capture my try in this game (the eejit) I’ll refer you to this Youtube link.

Looped pass out to the wing, defender seems to have it covered, big long arm outstretched into the corner to score a seemingly impossible try – amazing! So my try was like that. 🙂

vs Japan

Last match of the day against the Japanese who were a good team. And here we played with real spirit, we got beaten but we played with some pride and heart. After each game you shake hands, cheer each other, get in a circle, our coaches say a few words and we get our photo taken together. It’s really great and you do get such a buzz from playing in such an international event with people from such different cultures.