Last Friday evening I slobbed out in front of the Rugby World Cup. Being an exemplary parent I allowed my five year-old daughter to slob out next to me. At one point she said:
"Why is everyone is so keen on getting the ball in football and - what is it - rugby? Because you can get toppled on and everyone chases after you."
She's quite right, of course: you can indeed get "toppled on", especially in rugby; and, yes, when you've got the ball, everyone chases after you like mad. I replied with a shrug that, strangely enough, some people really enjoy that sort of thing and that, even at my great age, I am one of them. What did she think about that?
Silence.
Anyway, today Scotland play Italy and Wales play Fiji in matches deciding who makes the quarter finals. As an Englishman who grumpily associates top flight English rugby union with some of the less appealing aspects of Englishness - the smug, Home Counties variety - I always root harder for the three other "home nations" (Ireland, miraculously, being both united and part of the same "home" as Scotland, England and Wales for international rugby union purposes).
So fingers crossed for Scotland and Wales. Chase those Italians. Topple on those Fijians. You know what I mean.
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