World Cup Musings Part 4.2: The Matches

First, I want to say that it has been rewarding and so very hard to write about the World Cup. Rewarding, because I get to relive my experience through my words, and hard, because there are so many things I could say, so many events I could describe, so many interactions I could detail, and it’s hard to pick out the most important or the most blog-worthy moments.

I’ve started on the last part of this blog series about a half dozen times now, and I can’t ever find my footing. The hardest part of World Cup, was of course the competition and everything surrounding or a part of that. It’s also very hard to put that part of the experience into words. The anxiety, nerves, elation, tension, excitement, joy, and all of the other emotions were amplified, and would simultaneously flood over you at times. So, this is me trying to put that experience into words.

Let’s start with our first two matches. Against Italy and Spain, we played in the stadium at University College, Dublin. Those matches were lead ups to the stadium’s main event, which was always an Ireland match, so we always had a big crowd. The stadium wasn’t the biggest, nor was the crowd, and the pitch was the same as any other pitch, but with the World Cup logo painted on the grass and three years of built up expectations humming in the crowd, everything was bigger, louder, longer, faster.

Leading up to the games, we always had a match pitch familiarization block in our schedule. During this time, we get to walk around the match pitch, check out the locker rooms, and get used to our competition venue. During the match pitch familiarization, the field and stadium look and feel like any other would. On gameday, everything is more.

When we lined up, outside of our locker room, ready to take the pitch against Italy on August 9, energy radiated from each of my teammates. When the World Rugby folks put on the pre-game music, we all felt our hearts beating in our throats, perhaps because the pre-game music was a very loud and aggressive heartbeat. When we formed our circle after singing our National Anthem, you could feel the electricity in the moment.

And then there was the whistle, and all of that melted away. When you’ve been playing at the elite level, you learn present moment awareness. You learn to put away your awe when it’s time to take care of business. Those moments leading up to a World Cup match, transform you into a kid again. You’re smaller than everything that surrounds you, looking up with wonder at a world that’s new, scary, and exciting. When the whistle blows, you’re a scrappy, hard-working hooker again, intent on running over your opponent.

We handled Italy and Spain in dominant performances, though we would’ve liked to do more things right in both cases. We left points on the field, in both matches, and we think we should’ve shut out Italy. Our match against England, ended in a loss, and though we scored four tried and picked up a bonus point, had our defense against the maul been better, we would’ve had a shot to win that game as well.

Despite the loss against England, we would advance to the semi-finals. Wales did us a favor, in their match against Canada, and held them to only one try, so though the Canadians won, they didn’t earn a bonus point. Nor did they earn a bonus point in their final pool match, a loss against New Zealand.

I was having dinner with my mother and step-father, at Kiely’s of Donnybrook (I realize that the name of the restaurant has no significance to this story, but it sounds oh so Irish), after our match against Spain, while Wales was playing Canada. The Spain match was the first international match my mother had ever seen.

Kiely’s was full of Canadians, part of a viewing party, so we got to see the Canadians play Wales. Fresh off our second bonus point win, we had put ourselves out front of the pack. With only four teams advancing to the playoff rounds from pool play, we were in the catbird seat. And there, at Kiely’s, with a beef stew and a coffee warming me—a nice post-game recovery meal—I watched the happy Canadian viewing party relish in their victory over Wales. I relished along with them, because Wales had given Canada a run for their money, and now Canada would have to either beat, tie, or eke out a bonus point in a loss against New Zealand (and hope we lost to England without a bonus point) to advance. Bonus points are life, when your World Cup can’t handle more than four teams in a playoff.

We were confident, going into the days leading up to the England match. We thought we could beat England, and though there was plenty of pressure to do so, we knew we were in a good position, having earned two bonus points thus far. And then, right before we played England, New Zealand routed Canada.

The Canadians are a strong team—very strong. Their scrum is powerful and dynamic, they run good lines, their backline has a few threats, and they play with a bit of finesse here and there. They aren’t the most powerful, the fastest, or the most creative, but they have all of those aspects of their game honed, and they execute.

We all thought they would give the Black Ferns a run for their money, but that wasn’t the case. New Zealand made them look amateur (something they’d do to us a few days later), and after the Black Ferns’ victory, we knew we’d perhaps be seeing them in the semis (if France took care of Ireland).

The England match was tough. Our defense was ill prepared for their maul, and they exploited that to the fullest. However, in the last 15-20 minutes of that match, we played perhaps the fastest rugby in the entire World Cup, or at least that’s what our S&C coach told us.

When you play New Zealand, you always face a unique challenge, and that is the Haka. How do you approach centuries of tradition with respect, but also an “unfuckwithable” attitude? We decided to do both. We stepped up to the Haka, but acknowledged the tradition, in which their war cry is steeped. And we also stepped up to the challenge of playing with New Zealand…for a half. Our second half wasn’t exactly our best rugby, and we put ourselves out of Cup contention.

I’ve talked about the nerves going into our opening matches, but I don’t recall my feeling, before the semi-final and the 3^rd place matches, being one of nerves. It was more of an anxious humming. We’d also been dealing with injuries and other issues, and so pulling tighter together probably helped the nerves.

We went into the 3^rd place match with a young rookie flyhalf, and different faces all over the field. We were too concerned with supporting each other and being as efficient as possible on our side of the ball to devote much time to our nerves. While, we strayed a bit from our game plan a bit, we played well against the French. And though we couldn’t claw our way to a win, we clawed.

It wasn’t what we wanted, but it was probably a fitting way to end our World Cup—not quite having enough against the top three teams in the world. Not all journeys end in a sunset ride. Not all finales are nail-biting championships. Ours was much more.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been part of a team that had so little inter-squad drama/tension/bad vibes. This squad was special. A lot of teams talk about playing for one another; this team walked that walk. It is my firm belief that our biggest asset at the World Cup, which played the biggest role in our success, was the way we pulled together and played for each other. Like I said, it was special. I made memories and friends I’ll never forget.