Rugby World Cup Road Trip: Life on the Bank

Opinion

How better to gauge the nation's Rugby World Cup mood than put a man in a campervan and tell him to get lost?

For this entry, Matt Johnson checks in from Whangarei.

We were in the cheapseats. We had started life in the rich-ass seats and it had all gone pear-shaped.

Game Day and Alan gave us a lift from Kamo Springs Motor Camp into town - in his 1928 Rugby. It was a car. 71,902 miles on the original clock. Every time you changed gears, all the C-vertebrae in your spine went into counselling. It was magnificent.
People waved. Alan made four or five trips.

He wasn't even going to the game:

"Watching it on the big screen, mate." He said.

"Yeah?"

"I mean a big, big screen."

In town we didn't have seats. More musical chairs. I approached some Canadians to wish them good luck... only to discover they were Australians in maple leaf jerseys and face-paint. Someone in a French top threatened to do the Haka. I met my first Tongan from Galway.

Welcome to Rugby World Cup Wonderland.

At Whanagrei Stadium, shafts of light cut over the Western Ranges. They shone on Canada. By now, we had organic seats. Ordinarily, that means seats that are good for you intestinal tract. But here, it meant sitting on the grass. The Tongans were joyful. They had brought cushions.

Driven on by their dump bums, the locals on the bank were ruthless:

'Smash 'em!'

'Are you sleepin' or what?'

'SHAME!'

On my bus seat, the driver got out of his twice to remind me he was going to wave when it was my stop. Took the time to let everyone descend as close as possible to their walking destinations... the Continental, Kensington shops... somewhere out there, there is a bus still trying to get to TikiPunga. The French onboard couldn't believe the kindness.

It was magnificent.

A blonde woman got on, a little worse for wear. Started warning people to stop hiding on her lawn.

"I'm sick of people hiding on my lawn... if you hide on my lawn, I'll ****ing kill ya!"

No one did. I mean, no one hid on her lawn.

She took her seat.

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