Right, we’re just over halfway through this World Cup. We’ve finally had a couple of real humdingers, we’ve seen plenty of records broken, huge crowds are turning up and gnerally things are humming.
Okay, Melbourne in the rain is a glum spot. Yesterday I asked a chap to take me to ”a decent beach” when the sun came out for ten minutes. It took us an hour and a half, when we got there it was rocky and windswept with the threat of sharks.
Melbourne in a nutshell, really. Just add in the Southern hemisphere’s largest casino, mobbed by pensioners, and throw in dozens of slow-moving trams. That’s Melbourne, the Manchester of Australia, only they don’t have a decent football team (Collingwood Crows? You what?).
Can’t wait to go to the Gold Coast on Monday.
But I digress. Player of the tournament so far? I can tell you who it ain’t.
It’s not Chris Latham, the whinging fullback who got five tries in Australia’s record 142-0 over Namibia in Adelaide.
And it’s not Mat Rogers, the selfish Rugby League convert who scored 42 points in the same game.
Namibia? That’s the place where the Kalahari and Namib deserts meet. Where ships are wrecked on the Skeleton Coast. Where the Germans decided they didn’t really want a colony. No prizes for whipping their no good butts, sorry.
And it’s not a Scotsman either. Their display against France last night made Berti Vogts’ roundball lot look impressive.
I guess after that there are a few Frenchmen in contention. Fabien Galthie looks as lively as ever, I wouldn’t like to stop Serge Betsen even if I was driving a steam-roller and Imanol Harinordoqy could prove England’s semi-final nemesis. But you can’t honour a player with a ‘q’ and a ‘y’ in his surname.
We’ll wait until after the Samoa game before we nominate any of Clive Woodward’s men, though Will Greenwood, so effective despite problems at home, is already a contender. Kyran Bracken, despite contrary views in the Daily Mail, isn’t.
Let’s not look at Ireland or Argentina until their decider in the morning either.
I’m tired of sifting through the minnows for have-a-go heroes, though the entire Georgian side were magnificent against South Africa on Friday night.
New Zealand? They’ll win the bloody World Cup, so we’ll ignore them, though Doug Howlett and Carlos Spencer will get plenty of votes when they take the Webb Ellis Cup across the Cooke Straits on November 23.
No.Tonight, I feel proud to be a quarter Welsh, glad to have the second name Ivor, though I wished it away as a sensitive kid.
And Colin Charvis, the captain in their quarter-final clinching win over Italy yesterday, is my latest Man of the Tournament.
The poor bugger doesn’t even have a club to go home to after the tournament. He’s been slagged off by former Wales and Lions manager Graham ”The not-so-great-Redeemer” Henry this week.
But to see the big man hammering those fast-surrendering Italians in the loose brought a Leek-sized lump to my sheepish throat.
I’d been telling fans in my hotel, who think I might actually know something about rugby because I’ve got that big accreditation tag around my neck, to put their money on Italy.
Fool I am.
Bring on New Zealand in Sydney next Sunday. Let Charvis and converted Kiwi Sonny Parker loose. Give Rugby League wizard Iestyn Harris his head.
Then we’ll see if Kiwis really can fly. Stranger things have happened.