Notes From The Field

Vive Les Bleus and bula bula Fiji!

A case of grin and bear it with English fans who could not believe their luck. Some were in a sharing mood though. In a little Corsican themed bar near Marseille's port several euphoric Poms shouted us a drink and promised to work a few contacts in the 'City' for Six Nations tickets. We'll see...

Four more years...

"Stirling Mortlock, Stirling Mortlock, Stirling Mortlock..."

The rugby gods we're not taking my call on Saturday in Marseille's Stade Velodrome for the Australia v England quarter final.

Four more years...

The weekend began well. Our digs, courtesy of a French connection of Petites et Grandes Aventures, were in nearby Cassis overlooking the Med.

La Coupe du Monde et Les Wallaby

Popping down to Marseille tomorrow for another weekend of rugby. It's quarter-final time and Petites et Grandes Aventures and moi have tickets to the Fiji v South Africa game at the Stade Velodrome on Sunday (Go Fiji!). We'll try to get tickets to the Australia v England game too, but regardless it'll be a great atmosphere in Marseille. Despite the Wallabies going down to France last time we were there in 2005, Marseille means a weekend of great food.

Now for many years I've resisted buying a Wallaby jersey. Gold supporters cap and scarf for sure but never a jersey. After all they are hideously expensive. But this time around I'll be decked out in one thanks to family back home.

I'm told the Sports Report at DW Radio may be calling for game reports which will be fun to do. There's no arguments from me to write about rugby. Had I known they would be interested in reports before the RWC began I would have applied for media accreditation and maybe followed the circus.

In a previous life, rugby was basically my job. I used to spend a lot of time plotting rugby ideas for a particularly large global alcohol concern. And, if you've ever read those awful blurbs from sponsors inside game day programmes (and you need to seriously take a long hard look at yourself if you have) then I unreservedly apologise for delivering up rugby flavoured corporate mumbo jumbo.

The post game press conferences were always a hoot though. You always saw players at their best or worst depending on the game's result. This recent little burst from Sebastien Chabal brought back a few memories.

Oh la la... Allez Les Bleus

After last week's surprise request from DW Radio Sports Report to file a telephone match report from Cardiff on the Australia-Wales game, I had another interesting rugby request this week. Barbara over at Petites et Grandes Aventures suggested that we watch the France-Ireland game together. Sure, no problem. But, she's on assignment in Madagascar and I'm in Bonn. Barbara had enough bandwidth in her hotel room for an audio iChat so we both watched the game on TV5 France.

The problem for me was the French "oh la la" factor started getting out of control what with over zealous French commentators in one ear and "allez les Bleus" from Barbara in the other.