Comfortably Numb

After the superb weekend we had in Edinburgh watching the All Blacks play Scotland, we were pumped up for the AB’s RWC quarterfinal against the French in Cardiff. Recognising what an epic weekend this would be, we originally had hatched a plan where four of us (Bev, Tim, James and I) would do the trip in a camper van as part of a lads tiki tour. However the plan needed revising when James, who was a crew member on the Great Beer Delivery, was delayed getting into London because of storms in the Atlantic. A novel excuse to be sure, but seeing he was bringing us a Speight’s Ale House we were happy to let this one go! Check out the video tribute to James to see how we made sure he wasn’t feeling too left out.

Anyway we embarked on our road tour on Thursday night, driving along the M4 from London to Bath where we spent our first night. The next morning we got up and cooked some breakfast in the van (at the time French omelette, Boerworst sausage from South Africa and English Tea didn’t seem that ironic) and then headed into the city centre in search of a lazy swim at the Roman Baths. Having parked up the van we headed for the Roman Baths with our togs and towels, only to find that you can’t actually swim in them! It’s like a museum or something where you pay to look at the water - not what it says on the can! The only swimming option in town was to go to the flash harry day spa across the street, however paying £20 a head for a quick dip and a facial didn’t exactly scream “RWC Lads Trip” to us so we gave it a miss.

Instead we decided to hit the road early and spend Friday night in Cardiff. Daniel and Karen had spent two years living in Cardiff so they arranged for us to park the camper van on the street outside their old house, which is ideally placed just across the River Taff from town and the stadium. Their friend Kirsten still lives there and she was a great host for us and another 10 or so other random Kiwis who needed a place to crash for the night. After a few drinks at Kirsten’s we headed into town to the Walkabout Pub which was to become our base of operations for the weekend (in fact we probably spent twice as long in there as we did asleep!). Friday night was a HUGE night out and the place was stacked with Kiwis. We brought along the James cardboard mask and after having a few photos with that it became so popular that randoms were coming up to us requesting photos wearing the mask.

The next day was of course GAME DAY and we got up feeling pretty pumped up. Geoff had just joined us having arrived on an early morning train from London and the four of us got blacked up in our AB’s kit and busied ourselves with the mandatory tattoos and face paint. When it comes to face paint Bev is the Michelangelo of our group, so he went to work painting a black fern on my face and a Gene Simmons KISS style getup for himself. We then heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a short Welsh man peering up at us. We were worried that he might be having a go at us for parking our behemoth on his street, but he smiled up at us, introduced himself as Ken and invited us in for tea and toast! His wife Norma didn’t know any of this, and she was most surprised to see four black clad Kiwis in her living room when she walked in wearing just her dressing gown! Like most Welshmen Ken was a major rugby head and he had all sorts of NZ v Wales memorabilia on the mantelpiece to show us. We also got introduced to two of his grand-daughters, Naomi and baby Ella. I wonder whether a New Zealand would welcome four travelling Welshmen into his home for a chat over tea and toast!

Saying our goodbyes to Ken and Norma we headed straight for the Walkabout where we were lucky to be prematch guests of Lion Nathan through our Speight’s GBD involvement. That proved to be an absolute bonus as not only did we get ushered past a massive line outside, but we had a private sectioned off area with readily accessible bar - a major luxury in a pub which was rammed to the rafters with rugby fans. We spent the whole afternoon there are met quite a few identities from back in NZ, including Tony Veitch, former Canes Paul Tito and Jason Spice and All Black legend Robin Brooke. Robin Brooke is simply huge, an absolute monster of a man. You could probably fit two of the pint-sized Veitchy into him and still have room to spare! Like everyone else dressed in black we roared on the English as they upset the Wallabies, thinking that that would give us an easy semi-final ... little did we know at that stage!

We got to the ground and found our seats. The stadium was a sea of black jerseys - far more than there had been in Edinburgh - with a smattering of diehard French fans chanting “Allez les Bleus”. Perhaps the less said about the game the better, but the history books state that the All Blacks were raging hot favourites but were out-passioned and out-played by a fired-up French side. The feeling when the final whistle went was appalling and mind-numbing, a huge kick in the guts for the NZ fans, many of whom sat in their seats in stunned silence not believing what had happened to our RWC dream. We didn’t get up to leave for 20 minutes while the French danced down the aisles on their way back to the bars of Cardiff. Afterwards we attempted to drown our sorrows with some drinks but it just wasn’t happening for us. It was like beer had lost all of its taste - yep that bad. Realising our night was all but over we trudged back to the camper and spent the night drinking tea and playing cards, none of us really talking as we struggled to comprehend that the RWC dream was over. One of the songs we listened to was Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and I remember thinking that the words pretty much reflected how we felt!

The next day we headed back to London having put the rugby well behind us and looking forward to James and Ale House arriving in London. Lets just say that the Great Beer Delivery was a welcome distraction from the trauma of witnessing All Black Armageddon!

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Videos from "Comfortably Numb":

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