In Piri I Trust

The above picture of Piri Weepu has been circling Facebook for the past two days. It pretty much sums up the first half of the All Blacks vs. Argentina quarterfinal that was played on Sunday. Piri was essentially a one man team with his accurate kicking, single-handedly (or single-footedly?) keeping us on the scoreboard for most of the game. He's a HALFBACK, to boot. See what I did there? For the uniformed, the 2011 Rugby World Cup is currently being held in New Zealand, my home country. Rugby is a contact sport played with an oval shaped ball and is considered a national religion of sorts. Kind of like what Star Craft 2 is to South Korea, but more extreme. In fact, it is so important to our country that whether we win or not will affect the next government election, the level of domestic violence (no jokes, as the 2007 World Cup exit revealed), whether our economy is totally fucked or just a little fucked, etc, etc. We are a small country, but we are very passionate about this sport, but evident by the strength of our national team, the All Blacks. Unfortunately, despite traditionally being the best team in the world year in and year out, it doesn't translate into World Cup championships. In fact, the last time we won the cup was back in 1987, during the inaugural competition.

The Argentinians certainly played a physical game, but there's no denying our boys in Black were pretty average in comparison to their usual high standards. The final scoreline of 33-10 is not wholly representative of how close the game was. It took us approximately three quarters of the game to cross the tryline for the first of our two tries (a try is the equivalent of a touchdown), having relied on Piri's penalty kicking prior to that. The Australians, whom won their respective game against South Africa, will be a different type of ballgame, but we will have to step up a notch, nevertheless. 

In other results; As I mentioned, Australia won against a tough South African side. Some say that the South Africans deserved the win, but the number of tackles Australia made to stop their opposition was amazing. They will no doubt be sore during the course of the week in the buildup to the semifinal with the All Blacks. Wales beat a a favoured Irish team and France pulled some more playoff magic against the English. The fans whom we watched the France England game with at The Den in Sunlitun were a passionate bunch. Plenty of friendly jabbing, chanting and singing. I decided to support the French, as I tend to like the underdog. "Allez les bleus! Allez les bleus!" Good times.

Lao Wais, a bar in Wudaokao, down the road from BLCU blatantly advertised on a blackboard outside the bar that all RWC games will be shown live. Since it's in Wudaokao, we thought it would be better than making several trips to Sunlitun, especially for less important games. Turns out you can't trust American bar owners who know shit about rugby and only wanted to attract more patrons...they couldn't even find the fucking channel. Ended up missing the whole Wales Ireland game. I would say that I will never go back there again, but our friend has a birthday party there this weekend.   

This blog post is my achievement for the day. Coughed all night and feel like shit, so i skipped my classes for the day.... Going to a different section of the Great Wall tomorrow with my fellow tongxue, so hopefully I feel a bit better.... damn you Yanjing beer.