Rugby World Cup 2007 is here!

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Not many people are interested in rugby, I know. And I am not what you'd call a sport buff. My only cherished physical activity was rowing, which I did to my great delight. I stopped when I started attending the Polytechnic in a city where the only waters worth rowing on belonged to an airport.

Since our Christmas Trip to New Zealand (still the very best to me, together with Turkey-Bulgaria 2006), the spirit of that sport started to cast a very special beauty on me -- almost like a luminous nobility, a chivalrous charisma.

I am not a rugby authority, like maybe good old John-Paul, or Shane, Tejvan, or Prachar, but you can definitely call me a rugby lover, if not a rugby addict.

Tomorrow, 07 September 2007 at 21:00 CET, the first match of the Rugby World Cup 2007 is taking place at the Stade de France, Saint Denis:

France vs Argentina
International Matches:  39
FRA victories: 30
ARG victories: 8
Draws: 1

On the occasion of the Rugby World Cup, held this year in France, I would like to post selected tidbits about this fascinating sport.

I would like to start today with a tidbit from rugbyworldcup.com

Rugby's Indian Summer

PARIS, 2 September - It started as a trickle but for the last week
reports have started flooding in from all four corners of France of an
unprecedented tide of enthusiasm engulfing the IRB Rugby World Cup.

The French danced in the streets in 1998 when Zinedine Zidane inspired
the country's soccer team to a glorious World Cup triumph over the boys
from Brazil but rugby in France has usually interested only the
cognoscenti living south of the river Loire. Too complicated

Think of it. The world of rugby union used to attract only those who
had played it or had a son or brother playing it. It had the reputation
of a complicated sport  weighed down with unfathomable rules and where
to go forward you have to throw the ball backwards. So apart from the
odd mum or sister, the fairer sex was usually noticeable by its absence
from the rugby terraces.

Suddenly, not only have 85 % of match tickets been sold but the French
on both sides of the gender barrier have discovered an  appetite for
the game. Slowly but surely the mayonnaise has been whisked to a head.

Whether it's the 12,000 men, women and children who flocked to see the
Australian Wallabies go through their first training session at
Montpellier on the Mediterranean coast, the usually insular Corsicans
giving the New Zealand All Blacks a passionate welcome, or the normally
hard-to-please Parisians going head-over-heels over the dashing young
men from Argentina when they stepped off the train at the Gare du Nord,
everyone agrees on one thing. France has been hit by a wave of
rugby.

It's well known that rugby folk know how to enjoy themselves and it
looks as if this Rugby World Cup will lift the gloom over a country
which endured its wettest summer in 50 years. And if the Tricolors do
go all the way, then it really will be an Indian summer festival of
Red, White and Blue come October 20.

(RNS jcd/rw)

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