Black Cloud

It was a really really sad weekend for me. The All Blacks were knocked out of the RWC for the first time in the quarter-final round. It was just devastating.

I love the All Blacks, but I always had a gut feeling that they wouldn't win the 2007 RWC. I kept this thought to myself, only expressing it once to Damien just quietly and never mentioning it again. I didn't think it would happen at the quarter-final stage. The semis or the final maybe. But not like this and not to the French. The All Blacks are a great team, but they can never seem to get their shit together sometimes.

The start of the match was fairly ominous. The French staring at the All Blacks right in their faces during the Haka. I've never seen a team stand so close before and stare down the Blacks so menacingly before. Of all the things that went wrong, I felt the most robbed when France scored their winning try from a forward pass.

A FORWARD PASS.

I don't know what the referee was doing. He must have been blind. He was a bloody Pom. The pass was dubious enough. Everyone was touting Michelak as being the genius saviour of the French. But it was a forward pass?! How can everyone just ignore the glaringly obvious?? I'm baffled. I don't care what anybody says. It was a forward pass. Stupid English. Stupid French. You all suck ass.

I started to tear when the French equalised. And then clung onto hope that there would still be a chance. And then Rodney So'oialo scored a try. And then Luke McAlister missed the conversion... and the commentator said "That might come back to haunt him" and it did. The French scored another try (the one from the bloody forward pass) and then they converted. It was the 2 points that did it.

I was in tears from the 77th minute onwards, still clinging onto hope that some burst of magic would happen. But it never did. I cried again that afternoon while watching Sports Tonight and they showed the highlights of the game. It was really sad. Really really sad.