Here we were looking at a screen, looking at a ref looking at a huge screen of a bunker full of officials, who were all looking at multiple screens.
As Barry Crump would have said: “Now hang on a minute mate.” This is a game of footy not a game of three halves - our half, the other blokes’ half and now there are 25 minutes spent on working out who knocked on, knocked off or even knocked out one of the other blokes in the opposition when the ref wasn’t watching.
I mean fair suck of the sav - when will it stop?
Very soon we will have more bunker bros than players on the field. Remember when it was just one? Now there is a virtual jury jammed together.
“I’m going for a pie until you lot sort it out - anyone else want one?!” That’s what Crumpy would have said if he was sitting in the crowd at Stade de France in Paris.
Well, more like a baguette than a Big Ben but you get my gripe n’est pas mes ami?
Turns out neither of us was there but I have been in France for the past month and bathed in the beauty of a country where everyone says hello to each other, where they drink and eat pretty much all day, yet no one needs a diet, and no one goes overboard on the grog.
That’s how I saw it and have for the last five visits to France.
The wake-up call coming home last week was the way in which we guard our greetings towards each other, not knowing if we were going to get a “hello” or “kia ora” back or sadly, more and more, “What are you looking at?!”
Maybe we rely too much on sports to trigger our inner emotions of joy and laughter and laughing and kindness.
It really raised a few red flags and a couple of yellow cards what happened on and off the field on the other side of the world in “WiWi” land, and what was happening back here in the land of the long white tryline that couldn’t be crossed enough times to satisfy our thirst for having something good to celebrate.
Maybe we need to crouch and hold and find new pockets of joy to celebrate life in. Summer is knocking on the door like a loved one coming home from far too long being away from the whānau, so let’s start there.
And hey, it’s only four more years until utu can be exacted across the ditch in Ngāti Skippy land where pies, not croissants, will be the currency of kai.
Forty short months of heartache, hibernating in our own bunkers, until that sweet Sydney grand final day when the bomb squad will be blunted by Razor Robinson’s cutting-edge coaching.
Again, it’s only a game and no one died.
There were so many winners: Ardie Savea, Player of the Tournament. The Barrett Brothers, one crossing for the only try scored against a Springboks team in a World Cup final. The TAB. They must be smiling all the way to the bank given the amount of moolah punted on the ABs.
And for me, the biggest winner of that final was Captain Cane, the ultimate braveheart who held his mana and set an example for generations of kids to come.
For my two bobs worth of bunker Bs, the games I watched in France were tres, tres bien.
Fiji against England in Marseilles was magical. We practised the Fijian national anthem all the way to Olympique de Marseille and when our Bulla Brothers stood there and sang their hearts out - with tears streaming down their faces - we were there with them: “Meda Dau Doka - God Bless Fiji”.
Not to say our own kūmara sounded sweet but we were doing ka pai, and soon gained the attention of an army full of barmy supporters all around us. However, we couldn’t get away with lip-syncing the rest of the anthem and graciously retreated behind the flags we were proudly flying in front of us.
Or as Crumpy would have said: “Bugger.”
See you in Sydney 2024, whānau.
