Rugby world cup in New Zealand

If there are 2 words which go well together, it's rugby and New Zealand. In this small country it's like a religion and from what I have understood during our 2 weeks down under, it is not a laughing matter!

We landed in Auckland on the 24th of September, the day of NZ-France (also little sister's birthday but not the subject of this post), the locals were very tense. The track record of the All Blacks against us (Frenchies) in RWC is really not that good...
We watched the match in a pub, only 3 French people but we made as much noise as all the kiwi together! We lost very badly, the day after the press was tearing us into pieces... but after all, as they said, it was the B team...
And that really didn't get better after our defeat against Tonga that we had the pleasure of witnessing in Wellington stadium.

So on the morning of the quarter final against England, people were a bit nicer to us while we were having brunch in Auckland. No one thought we would stand a chance!
Note that menus in restaurant had been twicked for this big rugby WE.

We were hoping for the best! I didn't touch my French shirt for 3 days before (as I have now concluded it's jinxed), we had the flag, we got our faces painted with tri-colored roosters and R even bought a "beret" for the occasion (that he keeps on wearing now!)
We watched Ireland loosing against Wales on our way to the stadium on TVs that people had nicely put out in their front gardens. It was a good crowd, every one was having fun. And the game was obviously fantastic 16-0 at half time, for once I enjoyed the 2nd half, not too stressed out!

That was a happy qualification (for both players and fans) for the semis, totally unexpected and our friends from Scotland, Ireland and Wales were obviously delighted that we had managed to send England home!

Unfortunately for us, that was the end of the holidays in NZ, so since, we had to watch the rest of the world cup on TV, middle of the afternoon in Sg!

Actually for the semis, we were in Malaysia, R had called the hotel in advanced to check that they had sky TV and that they will be showing the match. And that's how we got to watch the French qualification with a bunch of English people (still bitter) and a very depressed Welsh guy on a paradise island.
We are obviously not very proud of how we played but after all, giving red card is not our call and if the Welsh can't kick we can't do anything about that either!

Conclusion, we will play the final against the All Blacks, in black (as we were fair play enough to let them wear their trade mark shirt) in Eden park. On the rugby planet it doesn't get any better!
Oh, wait, may be we could win?