Go Bokke!!

No I mean it. Go. Go home. Go practice. Go do something, just don't do it in Ireland anymore.

I was so looking forward to this last Saturday - we bought tickets to see the South African rugby team play Ireland at Lansdowne Road. Tickets were scarce as hens' teeth but we managed to get some for our friends, who drove up from Cork, and for my cousin Del and his buddy who flew over from London to see the game. It was going to be monstrous - The Boyz were going to do us proud. Hubby even met them in town on Friday and they promised they were up for it; they lost to Ireland the last time they played here and it was time to redeem themselves.

So we left home around lunch time on Saturday and headed into town, had a couple of pints in a pub beforehand and then joined the thousands of South Africans (and a few Irish, of course) streaming into Lansdowne Road stadium.
And what happened?
The Springboks choked. They were abysmal. We stood for two hours in the freezing cold, in the rain, shouting encouragement until we were hoarse... and all for nothing. They didn't just lose, they played really badly and were soundly beaten. The final score was 32 - 15, I think. By the end of the game it didn't really matter.

Do you think they know how much this stupid game means to those of us living 10,000km from home? Do they care that we put all our support behind them, that we pay good money to see them, so that we can spend a few hours together with some sense of national pride... only have it obliterated? And then we have to go back to work on Monday and take the flack from our Irish colleagues who are now convinced they're the next world champions, having beaten the mighty Springboks.
I could shake Jake White so hard his whole family tree rattles!

Jake: take your damn experimental teams somewhere else. Give us a break.
Once was painful.
Twice is too much.
I won't go to the next one.

Before the game, during the anthems, when we still had hope.

***

Disillusioned as we were after the game, it would have been remiss of us to have not gone for a drink afterwards with our countrymen. Men and women of varying shapes and sizes but all sporting the Springbok emblem somewhere on their attire filled the pubs and spilled out onto the streets. It felt good to be surrounded by familiar accents, strange thought it was to hear so much Afrikaans being spoken in Dublin.

And for all my bitching, our Irish hosts are as magnanimous in victory as they are in defeat and it turned into a fun night. We met a group of men who had flown over from Johannesburg on Thursday just to watch the game, and were flying back the next day. At least I hadn't gone to quite those lengths, so I felt a bit better. They kept trying to figure out why we were living here. It's so cold! they said. And here I was thinking it was actually quite a mild night. There's something to be said for acclimatising, hehe.

The funnest part was when my buddy and I went outside for the occasional smoke... now that
was entertainment! Let's see, there were the three drunk Irishmen - brothers - who for some reason kept wanting a group hug. Then there were the two drunk Irishmen and the drunk South African who were together but seemed to be having three different conversations. At one point one of them said something to me and my witty response was, "Are you on drugs, buddy?" The joke fell flat when I saw him taking half a joint from his mate just as I said that.
Hehe.
Oh, I almost forgot we also met The Most Boring Man On The Face Of The Planet. He was an accountant, and he wouldn't stop talking. Eventually we just skedaddled back inside while he was half way through a sentence. He didn't look offended - I kind of got the impression he was used to it.

I'd forgotten how much fun a night out on the sauce can be in Dublin.
I'd also forgotten how horrid a hangover feels.
I think next time the Bokke come here I'll just skip the game and go straight to the pub.