We won something.... else!

So we were always going to win a Rugby World Cup, however long it took the odds were on the fact that we would probably do it.

Winning a cricket test in Australia though, I wasn't entirely confident that would ever happen in my lifetime. In fact winning a cricket test against Australia fullstop was always going to be difficult. On Monday however, we did it. Did anything suggest it was likely to happen? No. Did people give us a chance? No. Was it fucking mean? Yup!

I watched the last 30 minutes in a round about kind of way, after remembering that parking in an undercover carpark doesn't do good things for radio reception I set off in a mad-dash around an Auckland shopping mall to find a television. Luckily, I found a pub and enjoyed this historic moment in NZ sport with a group of people who seeminlgy have nothing better to do than drink on a Monday afternoon at 4 o'clock. There isn't a sport that I follow which can take you on the ride that test cricket can and this was certainly one of those test matches.

Many of my favourite sporting moments of the past five or six years come from watching great test matches; various Ashes tests stretching back to 05, a couple of Aussie v Africa tests and one or two of the Aus v India clashes. Unfortunately for NZ cricket fans we don't play enough test matches nor are we good enough at them to get close to good teams. This time though, we got close to a good* team and boy was it wonderful to watch, torture for sure but sporting theatre at its very best.

It's such a great feeling watching a team that you have invested so much mental energy in over the years at last repay some of that faith. The Black Caps are a tough team to follow, anyone who does it knows that but we all do it because we know that behind the inconsistency and the frustration is a really good cricket side. To win a test match you have to be better than the other team across all three disciplines of the game, in Hobart we were that. It means so much to us because we know they can be better than the good* teams, it is just that they have to show it more often.

Maybe this is the beginning of something, not a golden era but certainly an era where we have a good cricket side that can compete with the best teams in the world at home and abroad. Here's hoping, because to watch test cricket is great, to watch great test cricket is amazing and to watch great test cricket that your teams ends up winning is one of the best feelings I have ever expereinced.

good* - note: this Australian team are not a very good cricket team but it is still Australia and they are still a team of dead set fuckwits!

We won something..... at last!

On the 18th of March this year I wrote an entry titled "I just want to win something". I had just watched Brisbane win the A-League and I was left to lament the complete lack of success on the part of any of the three thousand odd sports teams I support.

Well, at last, on the 23rd of October my thirst for success, glory and the ability to belt out a Queen song in the pub was finally quenched. We were Rugby World Cup champions. At last we had won the crunch game in the big tournament and there was Richie lifting up that little golden cup we had lusted after for so long.

Thanks to some work contacts I had managed to secure a ticket, originally I had only planned on going to the 3rd/4th playoff and the semi the week before but as the tournament progressed and the hype grew I knew that any opportunity to get my hands on a ticket to the showpiece should not be passed up. So it was thanks to a RWC 2011 staff member that I ended sitting at Eden Park with four sheilas from work witnessing one of the greatest nights in our sporting history.

Everyone knows the story of the game, the fairytale that was the Beaver, the drama that was the French actually showing up to play. I can guarantee it was as horrible to watch live as it was to watch on Television.

So how did it feel at the end? Honestly, I can't really remember. The last 10 minutes were all such a blur; I think I spent a good deal of time with my head in my hands, some laughing nervously with my mate sitting next to me and presumably some of it shouting at the field (I should probably ask the girls if any of the language I was using would have been offensive to the 8-year old sitting next to me) The feeling at full time though wasn't esctasy, I dont even think it was the unbridled joy I remember feeling watching BOP win the Shield or watching Pasty save the penalty against Bahrain. It was relief, just relief. We had done it! After all the years of hurt and what should have beens we had done it. They didn't matter anymore because for the next four years there would be no elephant in the room, no hollowness in our yearly dominance of everyone else. We had won the William Webb Ellis trophy.

My only letdown of the night was how long it took for anyone to play "We are the Champions" Some may think it is naff and cheesy but for me that would be the moment I had waited for for so long. Unfortunately though, no-body played it at the ground and for at least two hours at the pub I was in post-game no one played it. It wasn't until perhaps 2am, at about the same time as I was having a rant to a NZ Television star and his father that no one had played it yet, that The Clare Inn came to my rescue and allowed me to warble Freddy's lines.

We are and will be the Champions for the next four years. I won something and life is good.