Rugby World Cup in Cardiff 1999

Rugby World Cup 1999

by Patrick Ellis

Funny old game, rugby.
All that macho posturing and sweating. Not to mention the bleeding, gouging, stamping, spitting, kicking and tying things round your head so tight anyone would think that your brain should come trickling out of your ears.
And then there’s the ball.
Its oval.
Oval?
Yes oval. Is there another ball sport in the world in which the focus of attention isn’t spherical? Well, is there?
I mean balls roll don’t they? I mean thats just what they do. They roll. Or fly through the air of course. But mostly they have to be able to roll.

Not a rugby ball though. That’d be too easy and, lets face it, in some quarters it might be considered just plain cissy.
I mean you can look tough with just any old round ball. Sure. But to create the illusion of diamond edged hardness you’ve got to have a really difficult ball.
OK, we’ve got a difficult oval ball. And that makes us look hard.
So once we’ve got it, what are we doing with it? Whatever shape it is.
Exactly. Running round a field after it. Well a pitch actually. But all that is really is a very expensive field. And trying to get it, or help one of our mates get it, before fifteen other beefy boyos get their hands or boots to it.

Wow!
For this, my life, we need a multi million pound stadium with a sun roof and sides so tall that, even when the roof is open to its maximum, the sunlight doesn’t actually reach the whole pitch?
Here of course the contract sum really gets airborne. Because the bits of the pitch which fail to thrive due to lack of light need to be replaced from time to time by bits that do. To achieve this the pitch has been constructed on pallets so that the whole thing can be removed and carted off to somewhere else to recover if necessary while another, fully rested, vigorous version is installed. High-tech or what?
If you don’t ask questions about the cost of this system it would seem to be fairly sensible. It could even be claimed to have some benefits.

But whatever its costs and advantages and despite inevitable teething troubles and much pre tournament panic and paranoia the Millenium Stadium, built on the site of the old Cardiff Arms Park, was ready in time for the first match of the Rugby World Cup Tournament between Argentina and the host nation. Unfortunately both teams seemed to be concerned, not so much with winning, as with not losing so the resulting match was more notable for its display of tension and nerves than for creative and imaginative rugby. Of course it is the nature of competition that somebody has to win. Thankfully, at least for the home supporters, this time it was Wales.

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