Inching down Whitton Road, from the closed Chertsey Road to Twickenham station, was a lovely experience for anybody not in a hurry. The crowd had moved at a snail’s pace at the end of the opening Friday night, in good spirits by all accounts, and after France-Italy on the first Saturday of the tournament they were shuffling along at a similarly guarded pace, but with identical good humour.
The talk was mostly in French. Perhaps they remembered the RER train strike in Paris on the night of the 2007 final and these shuffling fans considered moving at any pace to be a bonus. Italians, who had seen their team lose, raised a cheer every now and again and everybody laughed. Italy lose at rugby brilliantly.
Saturday Twickenham had been more or less full, and charged with a very different atmosphere from the Six Nations norm there. Not better than at Friday’s England-Fiji, which, by general consent, had been fresh and raucous – just different. The crowds had been forewarned that to come by car was too dreadful to attempt. The train was the only option and they knew the walk and the wait would be long.
The Rugby World Cup has coincided with Jeremy Corbyn’s elevation and visitors to the home of the game seemed to think that this was exactly why the railways were going to be renationalised. The speed with which First Great Western – as opposed to that of their trains aiming for Ireland-Canada in Cardiff – apologised for underestimating Rugby World Cup demand suggested that talk of renationalisation has reached the boardroom too. Training and dealing with the scrum is not just a matter for the rugby teams of 2015.
The other great sound has been the booing of Richie. New Zealand, not surprisingly, did not see the funny side of the mocking of McCaw at Wembley. But it was a hoot, a joining of England and Argentina in a voices‑across‑the‑Atlantic moment of togetherness at the expense of the All Black captain. It was a knowledgeably pointed jibe at what was the wing-forward’s third yellow card in 142 Test matches. Richie gets away with loads, was the suggestion, and he’s been nabbed at last.
He might have been nabbed for more by the referee, Wayne Barnes. To fail to retire 10 metres from a free-kick or penalty is an automatic yellow; to trip an opponent is one of the taboos of the sport, possibly worthy of a straight red. To have a yellow compounded by a yellow/red and end up with only a yellow was a lucky break for Richie. Not for the first time, the Wembley throng might have added – had they not been too busy booing.
It shows what a rugby brain McCaw still has. How very wise – and how presciently sycophantic – of him to say before this tournament that Barnes, still reckoned to be public enemy No1 in NZ for the way he handled the New Zealand-France quarter-final of 2007, was a top bloke. The whole Wembley interaction was funny, but it was also a compliment, strangely paid. Everybody giving him the bird wished they had a player who could get away with so much over the years.
It has been the tournament of the TMO. The Rugby World Cup already needs to revise its time-frame. The schedule that made Japan go from Brighton to Gloucester – from South Africa to Scotland – in the space of four days is unfair. It’s the same for every team in Pool B but the lack of a decent rest made a repeat of the biggest upset in the history of rugby union impossible.
To extend the tournament is difficult. Rugby goes on at all levels and there are domestic seasons to be reactivated once the tournament is done. The management boards of all those leagues will tell you that it is absolutely impossible to sacrifice any more weeks of their seasons to the World Cup. No way – unless, of course, there is more money put on their table. My solution to raising cash would be to run flash “messages from our sponsors” in the TMO breaks, mini-ads while the officer in the broadcast truck decides which angle best suits their adjudication. It’s the sort of show that might appeal to Specsavers or private prisons.
So far, there has been no three-figure score on the board. New Zealand, Ireland and Wales hit 50 in the first week, but the four-try bonus point seems to be working as a brake on humiliation. No need to rub anything in. The worst is yet to come, with fatigue taking its toll on the vulnerable sides. The tries could flow in week three.
What else might evolve? It’s hard to see Richie succumbing to World Cup fatigue and repeating what he called his “dumb” act, but imagine the sound if his top-bloke mate had to bin him again. Elsewhere, the long lines shuffling towards Twickenham station may lose their humour and patience and the visitors to RWC may go down in history as the movement that propelled the railways back into public ownership before the end of October.
