By crikey, a month to remember

Tongan supporters should have won a prize for being the best supporters of their team at the last Rugby World Cup. Photo / NZME.

This time four years ago - well, four years and one week ago to be precise - New Zealand was celebrating the first weekend of what proved to be a month-long party.

We missed out on the chance of co-hosting the Rugby World Cup with Australia in 2003 because we couldn't deliver clean stadia - we weren't going to stuff things up in 2011. And we didn't.

The Rugby World Cup was an experience to remember for most of the country and if there were naysayers, well, even the best bashes have a party pooper in the corner.

Booker Prize winning author Keri Hulme was so incensed at my exhorting New Zealanders to get in behind the Rugby World Cup and make it a success that she put pen to paper for the first time in years and wrote a furious letter to the editor of this newspaper, followed up with an email.

Fair enough. Not everybody likes rugby - Hulme wrote that she loathed all team sports. If I was the catalyst for getting Hulme writing again, I was honoured, even if her literary renaissance was short lived.

But really, you didn't have to be a rugby fan to have a good time, provided you had the right attitude.

A woman told me that in 2011 she took her elderly mother to a McDonald's on the Fan Trail route every time there was a game at Eden Park. Neither of them cared much for rugby, but they loved people watching and would order a chocolate sundae each and watch men and women from all parts of the world, decked out in their country's colours and extravagant costumes, from the comfort of their parked car, until the last of the stragglers disappeared down the hill.

There were all sorts of magic moments that started from the time the Tongan fans converged on Auckland International Airport to welcome their boys. If there had been a prize for Best Fans of the tournament, I'd have given it to the Tongan community.

It celebrated every victory, accepted its losses and supported its team with fervour and passion, regardless of the result.

And what about the magnificent game in which Ireland beat Australia in what was, to all intents and purposes, a home game, given the support the Irish enjoyed from the Kiwi crowd. I had the privilege of leading the walk to Eden Park along the Fan Trail for that one, and there were thousands of rugby fans, many decked out as leprechauns many wearing Aussie scarves and jerseys and the atmosphere was good-natured and fun. After the game, we ran into a man dressed in a kangaroo costume who was sportingly posing for countless photos with Irish fans. She would have been a long walk home for Skippy that night.

And of course the Cinderella story of Stephen Donald being called up to join the All Blacks at the eleventh hour has become the stuff of folk legend. What fan will ever forget Donald taking to the field in the Rugby World Cup final in a jersey two sizes too small and booting home the vital points against France? By crikey, it was a month to remember.

Now it's Britain's turn to host rugby's biggest tournament but it looks like the festivities will only kick off when the foreign fans arrive.

I spoke to a young mate doing his OE in London at the moment. On Thursday, he said you wouldn't have known the World Cup was on, in stark contrast to when the Football World Cup was played.

Then, every office, every flat in London was decked out in predominantly English colours and the fortunes of the English team were discussed endlessly around the office water coolers.

This time around, my mate was struggling to get enough interest in an office sweep for oval-ball World Cup. However, a couple of days later, with just hours until kick-off, he told me the atmosphere had ramped up and rugby news had made it on to the front pages of the sports section of the British tabloids.

Whatever the English attitude, that won't stop New Zealanders enjoying themselves. Thousands of Kiwis are heading to London where they're hoping to see the All Blacks achieve what no other team has done before - win the Cup away from home.

For those supporting from home there will be late nights and early mornings and, although the festivities might be slightly more muted this time, at least there won't be the pressure of playing host.

And the fervent desire to see Richie holding the Webb Ellis trophy aloft is exactly the same now as it was in 2011.Kerre McIvor is on Newstalk ZB, Monday to Thursday, 8pm-midnight.