KEY POINTS:
The screen was huge, the room was full; cheering fans, pressed scrum-tight, eagerly watching the enormous athletes "Crouch, touch, pause and ... engage!!!"
(Ahh, the inherent absurdity of bureaucracy's frustrating impulse to regulate gloriously exposed in the unlikely context of a sports tournament!)
Not that many in that
bright, blaring venue were interested in such ironies. They wanted action.
And, happily, there was some. Whenever the ref took the unusual step of allowing play to continue and A passed to B and B to C and D came in on the angle to go over in the tackle, the room exploded!
Even the spectators squeezed sardine-tight on the grandstand at one end of the room rose as one - perhaps the lightweights had no choice - and their delight was primal.
We'd scored! Yeeeeeeeesss!!!! Our boys had done it - and done us proud.
The roar was visceral, the cheering wild.
Arms punched the air. Glasses were raised, many involuntarily. Souvenir jerseys got showered with beer and no one cared because it didn't matter because the Wallabies had scored.
Hang about. The Wallabies? Why would we cheer the Wallabies?
Well, you see, in this particular instance, in that particular room, we were Australians (plus a few melancholy Welshmen leaking dejection) and we were watching us win our all-important pool clash, boyo.
And things look good for our World Cup hopes, at least according to the chaps on the telly who've been discussing the matter at great length and with much enthusiasm for the past two days - it now being Wednesday.
Watching this interminable analysis is rather like tuning in to some flickering transmission in 1940 and discovering a gaggle of gurus cheerfully predicting that Germany's a cinch to take out the Battle of Britain.
It's obvious these Aussie experts don't realise they're not allowed to win. God's not on their side. They're not the All Blacks. We are! They're not the good guys. We are!
Clearly, they haven't seen those stirring ads with Ritchie and the boys solemnly telling us to "Believe in Black!!"
Probably because they've been too busy watching those stirring ads with George and the boys equally solemnly declaring Australians must "Believe in Gold!!"
Dammit, that outrageous little man even says: "When I run on to the park, I take you with me."
No you don't, George! You're the enemy. And this is war. Yes, actually, it is. Surrogate war to be sure but war nonetheless.
Not war as it is, simultaneously sterile and sinister, an asymmetric contest between smart bombs and invisible guerrillas, but war as the memory of it survives in the hippocampus or hypothalamus or whatever that primal core of our brain - that seed of our achievement and root of our curse - is actually called.
This is war as a ritual, a symbolic but crucial meeting of tribes at an appointed time and place to determine the destiny of both.
This is war as we still viscerally conceive it, a medieval test of strength and proof of mettle.
Basically, the World Cup is Agincourt with shoulder pads, or Culloden with mouth guards (if you prefer), or Rorke's Drift with spear tackles (not that we'd encourage the latter!)
But the similarities are uncanny. There are all the same trappings of patriotism and fervour, irrationally focused for sure but still felt with an elemental intensity that cannot be feigned.
There are flags and anthems and battalions of fans.
The teams are the armies of old, the pitch their battlefield. And the result still determines who rules the kingdom - which may not be quite so tangible as France when Henry's yeomen popped over but actually loses nothing by way of lustre by being metaphoric.
If we conquer it, no, when we conquer it, our delight will be as unbridled and profound as any that's followed the end of a real war.
And that, if we're honest, tells us something about ourselves.
Like it or not, it tells us we're hard-wired to fight and to win and to relish victory. It tells us that nations are just tribes by another name and that, beneath the thin veneer of civilisation, we are still true to our primitive selves.
That's why we invest such passion in these essentially meaningless contests. That's why politicians trample each other in order to be seen in the box seat. They know the value of reflected glory. And so do we.
Our champions make us champions. Their victory makes us victors.
It's embedded in our essence.
Look, boffins (with nothing better to do) have proved that the post-match testosterone levels of players in winning teams actually soars but woe betide the losers who become a testosterone-free zone.
This is evolutionary biology at work. It's almost certainly why we're here and not the Neanderthals.
And if the hormone fails to make the case, then it is surely proved by the triumphal raising of the trophy - like some ancient chieftain's severed head - as an instinctual part of the victor's celebration.
Sport may be a symbolic activity but what it reveals to us about us is very real indeed.
