South Africa 36 - England 0

I couldn't believe it, I know we haven't been good lately, and I know that we were without some key players, namely 1 in Wilko, but seriously, we were really bad.  I honestly thought that we might have a chance, and as I took my seat in the fantastic Stade de France, amidst 000's of England shirts and plenty of Green (including the 3 blokes directly in front of us with painted green heads). I felt proud.  

As we stood to sing the National Anthem (my first on foreign soil) the England faithful belted out God Save the Queen with great gusto (compared to the SA boys who had the words written on a little piece of paper), I even started to believe that we were going to do it.  The underdogs come good, I mean, this certainly seems to be the world cup for it, what with the Argies beating France, Ireland almost losing to Georgia, Tonga beating Samoa, the stage was set, the atmos electric, and the crowd fuelled on non-alcoholic beer (only in France).

The game started and for the first 3-4 minutes I felt that the £10 bet I had was safe, oh how naive! 

I know we didn't have a flyhalf (and a special thank you to the South Africans in front of me for reminding me of that at every opportunity), but for me the problem was not that Mike Catt was playing out of position, or his age, but mainly the fact that the players who should be stepping up aren't.  I would like to take this opportunity to remind the forwards that they are wearing an England shirt and playing for our country, this should be done with pride, passion and desire, and I would suggest that all our forwards watch and rewatch the France v Nambia game from Sunday night to see what they should do when they get given the ball and space.  Chabal, took the ball in his own half, and had only one thought on his mind, get to the try line, and over 50 yards later, he did, he didn't look around in a panic for a back to pass it to, he didn't try a ridiculus chip kick 5 yards from the line with only 2 men to beat and a winger on his outside, he just ran, hard and fast, and direct, full of determination, and he scored.

The backs hardly ever got the ball on Friday, and Jason Robinson was the only sharp looking back (mainly because he got the ball as the Boks continued to pepper him with the high ball), and then Matthew Tait looked sharp when he came on, but everytime he took a good line off the ball carrier, the carrier took the contact and Tait was left as the first man at the ruck trying to win the ball back.

Any way, rant over, it was a fantastic night, an embarrasment of a game, but a few beers later it was becoming a memory and as the night drew on, the singing started and at 5am as I wound my way through the streets of Paris to my hotel, singing "I know a bear that you don't know" to myself, a sudden thought hit me, bollocks, I'm supposed to do my long run this morning....

.....I didn't!