CARDIFF CATASTROPHY

Lez and I before the game full of smiles not knowing what was to come. However who would have known
While in Cardiff I met a mate of mine from St Stephens School, Dean Kidd We worked out we hadn't seen each other for over 24 years. He's lived in Wales since 1987 and in November Dean, his wife and 2 kids are emigrating to NZ. Normaly the Kiwis you meet are JAFFAS. These are the first boys I've met since being in the UK from Whakatane. MEAN MAORI

The ABS warming up before the match. Forget the passing drills Luke go and practise those droppies.

My old Uni mate Lez best described our Cardiff day in his email to our mates:

" Me and me old Palmy mate, Grant "Moos" Muru, were in Cardiff to witness the ill-fated match.

Believe me we were screaming for McAlister or ANYBODY to sit back in the pocket and slot 3 pts - we wouldn't have cared if had taken 15 attempts as long as one of them went over. Why I personally should have barged past security to tell Henry what the nation was calling for!
The worst thing was is that you could see that the French defence in the final 20 was resolute and we weren't breaking through. (I could go on about the chosen back-line all day but will spare you that debate) Desperate times call for desperate measures and I think McCaw, in his biggest match, most probably forgot to make the call. After all it should have come from him. "Luke - use the force!"

Well after all aren't these All Blacks supposed to be telepathic?? Hell! Richie should have only had to give one look to Luke and cue the droppie to put us through to the semis.
But it wasn't to be, C'est la vie and all that frog stuff.

Sat behind the goal, we couldn't see the forward pass to Michelak so we thought it was legit - that was until the big screen unveiled the cup blunder of 2007. Yeh you maybe let one of those go in your son's under 10 game - but I don't think Wayne Barnes will be taking his holidays to NZ for several years to come.

The Walkabout pub in Cardiff - (hell we couldn't even get in there from midday onwards) would be like a morgue after that match on Saturday night. However all afternoon, we found solitude in Kitty Flynn's to watch the Poms "kick" their way into the semi's. Very few Aussies there, lots of Irish (supporting Oz) zero Welsh, a few poms, but mainly Kiwis also supporting the poms - with somewhat blase undertones knowing the poms game is based on the heavy pack and Jonny Wilkinsons boot.

Moos and I had a pretty good "feel-good" factor after the poms topped off aussie, and we both were well into planning our next trip to Paris on Oct 20 long before the final whistle. I'm dead certain that given we'd turned up in Cardiff without tickets, and then had bought tickets (off a demoralised paddy) within 10 minutes of arriving, that we could to the same in Paris. Actually I was saying to Moos that this was all too easy - getting to the ground - buying the tickets - something was bound to go wrong. Low & behold the worst possible thing went wrong! Say no more.

One of the lasting memories of this doomed day is probably talking to all the Kiwis we met on tour - hearing their stories and how much they'd shelled out for tour, tickets what games they'd seen - anticipation of semi's & of course the final. Their tour's are in shatters, and its one enormous hangover for the next two weeks. Tells me how such a big "punt" it is to go on a world cup tour, only to be booted out before the semi's.

So its back to work this morning, but before doing anything I had to get this epitaph done and emailed out to you. Time to move on - for the 4 million of us.