Attending Aberystwyth uni gives me the right to support Wales. Fact.

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Written pre-All Blacks smashing Oz!!
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Well what a night. After a chilled out couple of day in Auckland getting over travel fatigue, I ventured down to the Fan Zone on the harbour for the first RWC semi final.

Awesome build up with live music and an aerial display by the NZ equivalent of the red arrows and a fantastic atmosphere. So I'm now a fan of 'Dragon' (apparently been around a few decades) and 'Opshop' - very popular out here and I could see why!!

Linked up with a group of Wales fans (no way I would have been supporting France!!) - one of only a few of those in Wales shirts who actually had discernible welsh accents (although it turned out even the welsh among them were now kiwi residents). Great group of people who were delighted with the fact that I'd been to Aber uni (a handy piece of information which got me well and truly 'accepted into the fold'😉.

They also seemed to be something of a group of meteorologists-30 minutes ahead of kick off they all looked up and said we should head indoors as the heavens were about to open (up until this point the weather was great). No sooner had we got inside 'The Cloud' than the rain started pouring down. So I made my decision to stick with this lot (their insistence on buying me beers helped in cementing that choice!!).

With kick off approaching we got good spots in front of one of the many big screens so had prime viewing position. The French contingent around us sidled away as they spotted the 6'5" Welshman in our group, Phil (incidentally, probably one of the softest people in the whole place although pretty passionate, and vocal, in his support of Wales so I guess could have seemed a little intimidating to those with the red whit and blue plastered across their faces).

So we ended up being joined by a small knot of south African fans who, having warmed to phil, decided to support Wales too. One of them was about 5' tall so I suspect there was slightly more strategy in his choice of allegiance than met the eye.

The atmosphere the whole time was awesome, only dampened by wales' eventual (undeserved) defeat. But even then the French supporters were gracious (they knew full well they should have been beaten).

As an English girl I have to say the atmosphere and attitude was something of a revelation to me. The beer was flowing from around lunchtime right through to the final whistle yet I didn't see even a hint of aggression or hooliganism. The atmosphere was immense and people were friendly and in a party mood - regardless of nationality. The rugby was a spectacle in itself, but the attitude and atmosphere was just something else.

Now fingers crossed the all blacks crush oz tonight so the atmosphere continues...

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