Peter FitzSimons: The finest feeling in rugby

COMMENT

The finest of all feelings in rugby? It's not necessarily scoring a try, making a bone-rattling tackle, or receiving a man of the match award, winning the game ... or even the brawl.

They're all fine, but mostly the pleasure is transitory. The real joy, the one that can still warm the cockles of your soul decades after, is when you are able to give it but good to the All Black boogers who have previously given it to you!

I'd love to report I know that feeling, but that's a whole other story.

The point is that as a breed Wallabies are never so dangerous as when coming off a loss against the All Blacks, and then shaping for a return crack at them, as we will see in Sydney tonight.

My own favourite yarn from the realms of Revenge of the Good Guys goes back to 1998 when, although the Wallabies had been completely smashed by the All Blacks over the previous four years they - hold still, this won't hurt a bit - turned it all around to go to a massive 3-0 series win!

Heading to the after-match function on the bus that night John Eales sat beside Tim Horan, who summed it all up perfectly.

"Y'know," he said to the skipper, as the darkened streets of Sydney swished past in the early evening, "the best part about this is that every Australian who's been copping it season after season for years from Kiwis - and everybody in Australia works with a Kiwi somewhere in the joint - can finally go to work or to the club on Monday morning, find the New Zealanders and give them both barrels."

YEAH! RAH! RAH! RAH!

But let us forget for a moment - just a moment, I promise - that the Wallabies are going to beat the All Blacks tonight at Sydney's Olympic Stadium. Let us particularly forget my own wretched form when it comes to predicting Bledisloe results and the fact they call me the "Death Knell" of the tipping trade. Instead let us focus on the glory of the whole thing.

The best thing about you Kiwis is that after the Wallabies do this to your lads, we know that your people on site at the Olympic Stadium, will do none of the following things:

* Burn down the stadium.

* Start a riot.

* Try to beat up anyone in a Wallaby scarf and beanie.

* Weep too loudly.

Okay, so I am not too sure about the weeping either, but the point remains. Somehow or other in the last 25 years or so the Bledisloe has grown into this extraordinary event when two mighty tribes annually meet in the flatlands by the river to sort this whole thing out, and yet in the midst of it all there is no nark, no nastiness, no nuttin' other than basic good-heartedness.

Is there any equivalent to this contest in the world?

America-Canada. Of course, nothing. Yes, the Toronto Blue Jays occasionally make it to the World Series, but in general the attitude of the Americans to all things Canadian is best exemplified by what the Chicago gangster Al Capone said in 1929: "Canada? I don't even know what street that is on."

England-Scotland. I think not. The great Scottish flanker John Jeffrey recently noted that while he was enjoying running his farm since he retired from rugby, there was a problem that from the high point of that farm he could just see England in the distance, and wasn't happy about it.

India-Pakistan. Yes, they have frequent sporting contests, but the presence of riot police in huge numbers tends to suggest that they're not strong on bonhomie.


Maybe something in South America then? No, come to think of it, back in 1969 when Honduras beat its neighbour El Salvador in a World Cup qualifier the subsequent unrest led to war.

Long live the Wallabies. Long live the All Blacks. And here's cheers.

* Rugby writer Peter FitzSimons is a former Wallaby test player.