Despite Premier Inn’s Good Night Guarantee, I didn’t sleep long on Saturday morning. To be fair though, I think it had more to do with the forthcoming double header in Cardiff, than any lack of comfort in the mattress. This was it. The big day had arrived. Years in the planning, 14 teams, 28 matches over 21 venues. No stone had been left unturned in the preparation, every detail carefully considered, and finally I was ready. World Cup 2013, here we come.
Queuing for breakfast in the nearby Sainsbury’s I got talking to a native of Bradford who was now living in South Wales. After a short while he posed the question “Why do they persist with that idiot?” Wow, there was a question. Not wanting to offend my fellow leaguie, I wasn’t quite sure where to go with this one. He could have been referring to any number of people. Sinfield, Chase, McNamara or Hock? Could even have been talking about Nigel Wood or Stevo. The list in league is almost unlimited.
I played safe. “What McNamara?”, I enquired. Personally, I think he’s done a pretty decent job in changing the culture of the England set up. It is clearly something that most English players want to be part of, and something that they see as a step up from their club environment. Previously, the lads from the big clubs, probably saw the international set-up as a step down. Less organised, less professional and done on the cheap. Plus there aren’t many other obvious, willing candidates.
Whichever way you slice it though, you’d struggle to find anyone, except the man himself, who ever went to bed and dreamt of the day that Steve McNamara was announced as coach of the England squad. Wayne Bennett, yeah, Steve Mac? Probably not.
“No, not him. That Hock fella”, replied my new mate. Oh, that’s fine. We were on safe ground here. I was quite happy to engage in a full rugby league moan about Gaz. The phrases, last chance, waste of talent and such an idiot were exchanged as we established common ground over Gareth “It wasn’t only me” Hock.
Brekkie sorted, we headed off to Cardiff. I knew where to park. Sophia Gardens had always done the job in the past. Nice and handy for the stadium and whilst I’m not one for paying to park the car, I didn’t mind five or six quid today. “A tenner? We’re not stopping here”.
My quite reasonable response was met with barely audible moans from the back of the car and the passenger seat. Everyone knew what this meant. A fruitless search round the back streets of Cardiff for a free parking space, five miles from the ground.
As frustration grew “It’s not the money. It’s the principle”, I advised my fellow passengers. “I’m not paying them a tenner to leave my car there for a couple of hours”. Half an hour and £5 worth of petrol later, we pulled up at Cardiff University. “Event Parking £6 – for Charity”, the sign read. Now we’re talking.
Buoyed by my sense of knowing I’d won that particular battle with the charlatans at Sophia Gardens, we set of for the city centre. What was very noticeable, was the lack of promotion of the World Cup. If we’d been here on Thursday, before any of the league fans arrived, I’d bet you could have wandered through the city centre, oblivious to the fact that the “biggest major international sporting event in this country since London 2012” was opening in Cardiff on the weekend.
Undeterred we headed for the stadium, bought a couple of programmes and waited to take our seats. The atmosphere was building nicely.
“Be in your seat by 1.30pm” we were told, and we were certainly going to do so. Inside the stadium, Jon Wilkin was wandering around behind the scenes, like he’d lost his way to the BBC studios, and looking as if his suit fitted as well as mine did, last time I had to dig it out of the cupboard for a funeral. “I’ll be ok, I thought. So long as I don’t have to sit down for long, and can take the jacket off”.
Inside the bowl, the lights were down, and it really felt like we were in for something special. “Oh wow. This feels like going to a concert”, was the reaction of my youngest. High praise indeed.
As part of the build up to the opening ceremony, Gethin Jones was interviewing Stevo on the pitch. Nothing unusual about that, but not quite the spectacular show I had been promised. To top it off, two stewards on the pitch had realised they were in camera shot, and were acting like a couple of pillocks behind Stevo and “photo bombed” his interview on the big screen, before one of them grabbed Stevo’s microphone and began woo-hooing to his mates in the crowd.
Jeez. Only in rugby league, could we have such a cock-up. Gethin is pointing at the idiot, only to have his own mic stolen, before the two “stewards” begin to belt out a rendition of Tom Jones’ “Delilah”. It’s all part of the show! I bet Nigel Wood was as relieved as me. I’m sure he’d already pictured the letter pages calling for his head over such a “farce”.
The crowd that was still building, responded enthusiastically to “Delilah” as you would expect, but there was something different today. People were looking for fun. They were out to enjoy themselves. This wasn’t going to be a moan fest.
As the opening ceremony unfolded before my eyes, I oohed and aahhed with the best of them but reflected with pride that this fantastic spectacular, was put on by my sport. I love rugby league. Not everybody’s cup of tea. Many people won’t even give it a go, but I love it, and this was an opening ceremony worthy of the magnificent athletes who will grace this tournament.
So finally on to the matches. England took a ten point lead against the Aussies, but in the end lost 28-20. This was no shambles, or blow out score. The Aussies edged it, but there was plenty of optimism that England could perform better. Cut out the penalties, some of the handling mistakes, and focus better at some of the set pieces, and on our day, you never know.
The turnaround between the matches was always going to be important for the crowd that stopped for the second match. I think the encouraging performance of the England team, plus the quick changeover meant that Wales and Italy started their match with most of the crowd still in place. There was a gradual drift away during the game, peaking at half-time, but by and large, both Wales and Italy played out their game in front of the biggest crowd they are likely to have ever had for an international. It was a nip and tuck match, but in the end, the Azzurri had too much class, and it told in the final 20 minutes, as Wales struggled to exert any pressure. Italy triumphed 32-16.
So back to the car we walked. Surprisingly upbeat. Both England and Wales had lost, but this wasn’t a time to sulk. Both had played well. So too, had both the opposition. We’d just had a great day out and secured memories that will stay with us for a long-time. The World Cup had got off to a great start. An England win would have topped it off, but let’s not be greedy. I’ll take comfort in the words of Tony Rea talking to Andy Wilson on the Guardian podcast. “I think, whoever loses the England Australia opener, will win the World Cup”, said Tony.
I ignored the fact that the performance of the London Broncos this year, raises considerable question marks over Tony’s judgement, and set off back up the motorways in the dark and the rain, comforted by the fact that losing today was actually good for England’s chances of winning the World Cup after all.
The Rugby League World Cup 