Japan's Kensuke Hatakeyama celebrates victory in the Rugby World Cup Pool B match between South Africa and Japan. Photo / AP
Japan's Kensuke Hatakeyama celebrates victory in the Rugby World Cup Pool B match between South Africa and Japan. Photo / AP
Once bitten, twice bitten. Having sat through an entire weekend of Super Rugby this year in an attempt to re-engage with the national sport, I put myself through it again on the opening weekend of the World Cup in an attempt to re-engage with... Georgia? Japan?
This was the ultimate real-time self-indulgence dressed up as an assignment.
Six-hundred and forty minutes of work (add your own inverted commas).
At the end of the day, or the weekend in this case, rugby was the winner, courtesy of one of the most unbelievable upsets in sporting history. Japan's victory was more than a shot in the arm for a sport that has for too long pandered to the old order at the expense of the new.
This was an instant classic and, by default, turned a relatively ordinary slate of opening weekend matches into a humdinger. But I'm jumping ahead 240 minutes here. To get to Brighton, I first had to run through west London, Gloucester and Cardiff.
(1) My self-imposed rules were quite simple: watch every game in real time, no MySky, no rewind.
ENGLAND v FIJI, Twickenham, Saturday, 7am
England fans go crazy after defeating Fiji. Photo / Brett Phibbs
6.45am I don't do Opening Ceremonies, can't stand them. Actually, that's not quite true and I don't want to start this diary with an outright lie. If memory serves, I was 'forced' to cover the 2004 and 2008 Olympic openers.
I recall the Greek one being very wet and it involved bouzouki, lots and lots of bouzoukis. The Beijing one was no doubt spectacular, but I cannot recall.
As for rugby opening ceremonies, I remember the homespun effort in 1987 - Waka Nathan leading a bunch of kids with signs - and Jonah's white shoes in 2011, but that's it.
So this one got the red card and still the alarm clock seems like a rude intrusion.
I have my first correspondence.
Dylan, Quite honestly, I'm 'over' this RWC already. We've been inundated with RWC/All Blacks. I'm sick to the back teeth with the hype. Here's hoping the All Blacks are eliminated early, so we can all get on with life, Kind Regards, Dave Weggery
I'm not with you on this one, Dave. Children are still being born, doctors are still saving lives and rubbish is still being collected. In other words, life carries on. Nobody is forcing rugby down to your back teeth.
This kind of anti-sport (more like anti-rugby) snobbery is more boring than a bunch of reset scrums. Sports fans don't write to the World desk saying, "enough of the Syrian humanitarian crisis already. If I see one more displaced family..."
So Dave, please cycle home, pour yourself a nice, crisp Riesling and listen to the soothing strains of Chopin's nocturnes. Let rugby lovers get on with loving rugby in peace.
Anyway, my woefully inadequate TV goes on. The first thing I see is Prince Harry's red beard. I don't agree with it on any level but also recognise he's just carrying on a royal tradition of ridiculous facial hair.
Cool story bro: Prince Harry and World Rugby chairman Bernard Lapasset chat during the opening ceremony. Photo /AP
He and William belt out God Save The Queen along with 80,000 other Twickenhites. It is rousing, for sure, but you have to figure it's pretty weird singing a song about your grandma in front of so many people.
Anthems over. Bole completed (there's never quite as much made in the UK press about the Bole or Sipi Tau giving teams from the Pacific Islands an unfair advantage). Rugby starts...
... No wait a minute, or two. There're three ads and a promo to sit through first. I'm so not cool with this. The entire game is a walking advertisement. The stadium has more flashing LED lighting than downtown Tokyo and I'm paying a pricy monthly subscription for the privilege of watching this. For the love of Mammon do you have to bleed me any more by selling me cars and banking products in those moments before kickoff when what I really want to see is the whites of a player's eyes?
I am officially upset and Jaco Peyper hasn't even had his first blast of the Acme Thunderer yet. It will get worse before it gets better.
Fijian players perform their pre-match ceremonial war dance. Photo / AP
7.14am Drama. Veteran Fiji flanker Dominiko Waqaniburotu gets involved in a tip tackle. It is clearly not dangerous, but it is silly. Peyper goes upstairs. He is itching to pull yellow from his pocket. The commentators are damn near insisting on it, but Shaun Veldsman, to his eternal credit. Can see there was no leg drive, no spear and certainly no intent to hurt let alone damage the player so recommends a penalty only.
I have hope for the new system.
A couple of minutes later and the first try is scored. It is a penalty try to England and it went something like this. Scrum penalty (technical infringement), kick to touch, lineout drive, penalty (technical infringement). Yellow card to halfback Nikola Matawalau.
You know that moment when you're scrolling through the channels and you come across kabaddi and you have no idea what the heck is going on? Well, that's exactly how Igor and Dmitry felt when they were at their local in Kiev having a cold pint of Obolon and wondering what this Rugby World Cup thing was all about.
As time rolls on I'm becoming more divorced from the action. Nemani Nadolo is superb, but England are just that little bit stronger across the park and Fiji seem too scared to chance their arm.
Nemani Nadolo jumps up for a high ball before scoring. Photo / Brett Phibbs
There seems to be a little bit of angst in Twitterdom about Peyper but on the Paddy O'Brien scale of shafting Fiji, he hasn't reached base camp yet. What he has to stop doing, however, is going upstairs for tenuous foul play. This is becoming painful now as a Fijian is penalised for a perfectly good cleanout on the advice of the TMO, and Dan Cole, I think, is pulled up via the same method for scragging someone gently across the top of the sternum. Sad.
Fiji bring reserve lock Tevita Cavubati on. It's a name to stir Wellington memories. At just 120kg, Tevita is a mere slip of his prop forerunner Billy Cavubati.
@dcleaverNZH My mind immediately flashed back to him BarBQuing lamb chops in build-up to 95 Shield Challenge v Cantabs (went down 65-17)
The game drifts by on a raft named indifference until England empty their bench, including leaguie Sam Burgess, and the game sparks to life. Mike Brown finally has room to move and England canter clear 35-11, with Billy Vunipola's bonus-point try seemingly vital in the Pool of Death.
The commentator, who has singularly unimpressed (Nick Mullins perhaps?), reckons Fiji played with "exemplary spirit". I think that is nonsense. They had a chance to put pressure on an at times disjointed England but bottled it.
This is not going to be, for me anyway, an alcohol-infused World Cup. Maybe a wee dram with the early game, but any more than that and I will wake up with a crick in my neck and the cat on my chest.
Instead I'm thinking coffee and lollies. Lots of lollies. I've gone for Mackintosh's Toffees. Old school. Very English. My favourite flavours, in descending order: Toffee, Egg & Cream, Malt and Harrogate tied for third equal, Coconut, Mint.
I'm expecting an easy win for Tonga at Gloucester's Kingsholm Stadium. No results in Georgia's buildup suggested they were on the cusp of anything special, though I have a soft spot for coach Milton Haig after his time with Counties Manukau.
Georgia's anthem sounds cool but the thing that strikes is the entire team looks like they are straight out of Central Casting. They could all play swarthy stevedores in a Black Sea port town in some John Le Carre-inspired spy thriller.
Their union leader would be captain Mamuka Gorgodze, a lump of a No 8 who plays on the edge of sanity. He cajoles and berates his players and occasionally fails miserably when trying to act like a seraph in front of referee Nigel Owens.
If Gorgodze and his ilk represent rugby's new frontier, then how great would it be to see a few out here in the Super 23, or whatever that competition is called next year.
It is captain Gorgodze who crashes over in the first half and TMO George Ayoub is called upon to confirm. How on earth did Georgie get a gig here? It's crazy. He nearly killed my last retro diary.
Thankfully he doesn't attempt to grab any headlines here, though Chris Pollock gives it a nudge on the stroke of halftime when he denies Tonga a try from a well-worked lineout move, seeing the slightest of forward passes.
Tonga seem incapable in the second half of shifting the game away from a setpiece battle, which they're clearly not equipped to play.
In an ironic turn of events, it is Georgia who score a terrific try through Giorgi Tkhilaishvili (pronounced: Thk-i-laishvili), after great lead-up work by Merab Kvirikashvili (pronounced: Meer-ab).
Georgia team celebrate their victory over Tonga. Photo / Getty
12.54am Tonga finally score and they have a chance at the end but throw crooked to the lineout. Georgia hold on 17-10 and there are scenes near the grandstand on the Fred and Rosemary West side of the ground.
"Toughest game my life," says Gorgodze. "A dream come true for most of us," says Milton Haigvili.
Ireland's Jonathan Sexton runs with the ball to go on to score a try against Canada. Photo / AP
I'm looking at Ireland's Rory Best warm-up at a full Millennium Stadium and wondering if hookers all came out of the same box. He, the Georgian bloke Jaba Bregvadze, Agustin Creevy, Mario Ledesma and the likes all seem to have been put together at the same factory - the one that ran out of necks.
That's a terrible anthem Ireland have. For a country with such a rich musical tapestry, the unified rugby anthem is unspeakably awful. Can't they just get Bono to write them something, or Shane MacGowan, or Westlife's You Raise Me Up, now there's a lovely tune.
The men in green look good from the start, though, even with Ireland's Call ringing like tinnitus in their ears. Their collars look a little strange but that's a minor quibble.
Canada captain Jamie Cudmore gives away a shocking yellow card and watches as Ireland pour on three tries. Johnny Sexton goes beyond 500 test points. I wonder if he'd give them all back for these three?
Jared Payne is romping around in the centres, just another shocking example of the Northern Hemisphere powerhouses pillaging the South Sea Islands for talent.
As a man of amber-and-black persuasion, I want Kieran Crowley's Canada to be at least spirited, but they just seem... useless. I can see how they lost all their PacNat Cup matches this year.
Ireland's Jonathan Sexton celebrates scoring a try against Canada. Photo / AP
2.08am My eyelids are not co-operating. I pre-loaded what I thought was enough sleep to cope but there is obviously something soporific about Canadian rugby. I may have even lost a few minutes there in the second half.
It feels like I'm the only man in New Zealand - aside from those dancing with glo-sticks in some K Rd club of iniquity - up at the moment. Tweets are falling into a void (although not having enough followers to fill the cloakroom at the Inangahua Hall might also have something to do with it ). (2)
Paul O'Connell becomes the second second-row captain in the one game to be yellow-carded. If you can find another example of that happening you're better than me.
Ireland win 50-7, just in time for another slaughter, this time at the UK's gay capital, Brighton.
Japan fans celebrate the 34-32 win against South Africa. Photo / AP
Can't say I'm much looking forward to this. Japan are one of those sides you want to do well just as a reward for continually turning up. But much like a kamikaze mission, they always start with great passion but rarely end well.
A betting blog in South Africa is urging punters to get in on South Africa by 42+ points. I suspect he's right .
For the next hour my notes are pretty much illegible though I can see I was surprised by the Springboks selection. There's no place in the 23 for Willie le Roux, who I rate as the most dangerous broken-field runner in the game outside of New Zealand and Israel Folau. I've also never got the fascination for Zane Kirchner - to me he's all big hair (the dreads are gone) and up-and-unders, but each to their own.
Francois Louw is another European-based player in the starting XV I have my doubts about and Lood de Jager and Bismarck du Plessis must have been fortunate to hold off Eben Etzebeth and Adriaan Strauss respectively.
Japan players celebrate the match winning try by Karne Hesketh. Photo / AP
4.20am Japan scores a lineout drive try on the Boks. Re-read that sentence. It's insane; a classic Man Bites Dog headline. Regular readers of my diatribes will know that I'm no fan of the lineout drive, but it doesn't seem quite as obnoxious a tactic when it's the minnows doing it the giants.
South Africa respond almost immediately with a lineout drive of their own. Obnoxious tactic.
There's so much happening that I'm not taking in. Every time South Africa score I wait for the dam to burst but it doesn't happen. It's 22-22 all after an hour and I think I noted that the Springboks were starting to look old and ragged. Or I could have been writing that about me.
When replacement hooker Strauss scores a try of Dane Colesian dimensions, I salute Japan for their brave but ultimately futile resistance... then stuff happens.
Japan start playing rugby of breathtaking audacity and accuracy. They keep it in hand and refuse to bow. Kotaru Matsushima does brilliantly for Ayumu Goromaru's self-converted try.
Handre Pollard nudges South Africa back in front but Japan come back at them, hard. They twice refuse kickable penalties that would have earned a draw because they never know when they'll get another chance like this.
There is this truly special moment when the camera pans to the Boks as they prepare to pack down a defensive scrum. It pauses on the inscrutable lineout genius Victor Matfield. The look on his face is hard to explain, but it's like he's come home to find that an intruder has broken in and left all his rugby memorabilia, all his expensive trinkets, but has taken his Nutribullet - it's just total confusion.
The next thing I know I'm writing...
Dead-set truth... I kind of wish it hadn't been Karne Hesketh who scored at the end. Not that I'm not happy for him, but I really wanted this to be a Japanese story, rather than Twitter erupting with songs of praise for the Napier boy who turned the Cherry Blossoms into 34-32 world-beaters.
Still, it's a minor quibble. Brighton rocks! (groan)
FRANCE v ITALY, Twickenham, Sunday 7am
Italian players catch their breath at the end of their Rugby World Cup Pool D match between France and Italy. Photo / AP
I steal an hour's sleep, which makes waking harder and deeply unsatisfying.
It's halfway through the weekend and this was the game that appealed as the most crucial in terms of sorting out pools. Obviously Japan has turned that on its head and I'm not expecting the game to top that but... what a shocker.
Italy lost captain and influential No 8 Sergio Parisse before the match with a thigh injury and with it any clue.
They're 9-0 down when the commentator - I suspect the same one as for Fiji and England - says: "If it continues like this it will be a France victory."
If it continues like this no one will be watching without the 'mute' button on.
Geez they're bad - undisciplined, uninspired and incapable of offering even feeble hope to their supporters.
France are combative enough and nuggety - tighthead prop Rabah Slimani looks a force to be reckoned with - but they didn't have to do anything except kick their goals.
Slimani scored off a grubber kick and Freddie Michalak kicked a bunch of points and hit a pair of posts, but it was impossible to get a sense of whether this is the France we're going to see or just the France that dispatched summary justice on Italy.
8.08am Craig Joubert has whistled a penalty once every 2m 25s on average and I still have half an hour to sit through.
Poor Yoann Huget. Always thought he had a bit of game about him but as he cuts inside a tackle his knee goes, possibly his cruciate ligament. He is assisted to the stands where the camera finds him sobbing.
France's Yoann Huget is helped by medical staff. His World Cup is over. Photo / AP
It's a poignant moment and, dare I say it, probably the only truly memorable thing about the match, won 32-10 by France.
SAMOA v USA, Brighton, Sunday 11pm
Samoa players perform their pre-match war dance ahead of the Rugby World Cup Pool B match between Samoa and USA. Photo / AP
A terrible piece of timing has left myself well short of the sleep needed to cope with three back-to-back games.
It is announced before kickoff that the highlights of the previous day's stunner between Japan and South Africa have received four million views on the official website. No word how many clicked on France v Italy.
We're also told rugby is the fastest growing team sport in the US. It's probably only ever going to be a niche sport there but I refuse to be cynical about the chances of making rugby work Stateside. There is a committed following and huge potential for growth, although a half-empty Soldier Field for Australia's pre-World Cup test there was not a good look.
The first piece of action sees Thretton (greatest rugby name ever) Palamo wipe out Samoa's Ray Lee-Lo. This could be brutal.
Samoa lead 14-8 at the half. It's been slightly better than okay, with one terrific try apiece.
Tim Nanai-Williams, who was dreadful in his debut test against the All Blacks, is the class of the field, while Chris Wyles scored a try for the ages.
Tim Nanai-Williams runs over to score against USA. Photo / AP
12.33am Sick to the hind teeth of George Clancy. His insistence on showing he knows every clause of the rule book is disrupting the flow of what is otherwise a decent match.
Samoa's set-piece superiority and discipline has them comfortably in front, but US replacement prop Chris Baumann's smile after scoring from close-range - which made the final score 25-16 - was hard to beat.
A good start and both will fancy their chances against South Africa (snigger).
Things I know about Uruguayan rugby: a team crashed in the Andes some time ago and the survivors had to eat the dead to survive.
Things I know about Uruguayan rugby after half an hour of this test: England and Australia could put 100 points on them.
Sure, they start rightly enough with first-five Felipe Berchesi particularly lively, but they were soon cuffed and brought to heel by an injury ravaged Welsh team lacking any sort of spark.
In fact, it would be wrong to waste many words on this, other than to say:
• Wales will struggle to get out of Pool A on this showing; • They have too many injuries to key players, and a new one to Cory Allen, who bagged a first-half hat-trick here, to frighten England and Australia; • So bereft of imagination were Wales that they spent the entire second half subduing Uruguay by means of scrum and lineout drive; • Is this what Gattyball has become? • Uruguay could have really used Luis Suarez.
Aaron Smith dives over to score. Photo / Brett Phibbs
My Lost Weekend has come down to this - eighty tone-setting minutes from the All Blacks at grandiose Wembley with its monstrous arch.(3)
Instead what we get is penalty after penalty in the first half, with most of them favouring the All Blacks except the two keys ones - professional fouls by Richie McCaw and Conrad Smith that result in yellow cards.
You couldn't argue with either of them. Actually, scratch that. It was Wayne Barnes and we are reigning world myopia champions so we probably will argue, but IMHO he was right on both occasions. McCaw in particular had a brain freeze.
It's hard to stomach seeing a legend of the game booed incessantly by an English crowd every time he appears on camera but he was just asking for it this time with a ludicrous foot trip. Smith's was borderline debatable, but the fact he didn't go for one of his angsty arm-flapping pouts probably indicates he was bang to rights.
The All Blacks look okay with the ball but Argentina are playing with astonishing linespeed and aren't missing a tackle. The All Blacks by contrast look passive on defence and are drifting. Metres are worrying easy to come by for Los Pumas and No 8 Leonardo Senatore is bossing the game the way the All Black No 8 usually does.
Argentina celebrate scoring the opening try of the match. Photo / Brett Phibbs
In the past I've spent time unnecessarily worrying about McCaw's effectiveness, and I still have serious reservations about Dan Carter (although they were assuaged to a degree at Eden Park versus the Wallabies), but I cannot recall spending much time worrying about Jerome Kaino. It's not like he's doing anything wrong, but I can't shake the feeling the All Blacks need more from him (or, if not, more from someone else).
Halftime comes and goes - 600 minutes down, 40 to go. Argentina grab a four-point lead but this looks like a test that will be decided by the bench. Sonny Bill Williams comes on for Ma'a Nonu and creates havoc straight away but Nehe Milner-Skudder drops a sitter and is quickly dragged for Beauden Barrett, with Ben Smith moving to right wing.
Sam Cane comes on as the All Blacks play twin opensides and they immediately look better all over the park.
The win is hard-fought and deserved and owes much to SBW. You almost fear mentioning him for the bile that comes with it . (4) There is no more maligned player in this squad.
Strangely enough, when the going gets tight in the knockouts, there may be no more important player either.
(3) It stands 133m tall and is 315m long and was climbed recently by daredevil James Kingston
(4) I was at the Twickenham test versus England last year. Afterwards, at the Harlequins clubrooms at the nearby Stoop Ground, I was asked to do a Q&A for people there with All Blacks Tours. When asked who had played well I had the temerity to suggest that SBW had acquitted himself pretty well in his return to test rugby. Jeepers, you would have thought I'd just told them that their dairy farms were spoiling our waterways. It was a troubling insight into a weird side of New Zealand.
What a strange and mostly compelling opening weekend of the eighth Rugby World Cup. It will be, rightly, forever remembered for Japan's still-can't-quite-believe-it win over the Springboks.
You do have to wonder whether thought has been given to replacing coach Heyneke Meyer with immediate effect. It would be welcomed in some quarters (8) and it seems he's lost the changing room to an extent, with veteran halfback Fourie du Preez offering this startling quote: "They were probably just better prepared than us, they had a lot of focus areas where they targeted us. They just outsmarted us."
Expect a Bok backland against Samoa in Birmingham next weekend.
Of the other big guns, France were ruthless and dull, Ireland were slick and untested, England were near enough to what was expected and New Zealand were unexpectedly stretched. The All Blacks could have done with that hit-out in the second or third game, however, because with all due respect Namibia, Tonga and even Tonga's victors, Georgia, won't ask a lot of questions.
Gripes? The increased intrusion of the TMOs might have made for more accurate decisions, but it drags the matches out and on a couple of occasions, particularly in the opener, was completely uncalled for.
The commentators for the Twickenham tests were, at best, below standard.
But all in all a great start to the tourney. In descending order, my test rankings were: Japan 34 South Africa 32 New Zealand 26 Argentina 16 Georgia 17 Tonga 10 England 35 Fiji 10 Ireland 50 Canada 7 Samoa 25 USA 16 France 32 Italy 10 Wales 54 Uruguay 9
Join me in a few weeks when I do it all again for the quarter-finals.
Check out www.nzherald.co.nz tomorrow afternoon for the Team Power Rankings.
