365 Sporting Days

At last I’ve been at 2 matches over a weekend in daylight hours!  That means I have some photos to share, my camera is a bit rubbish with late kick offs. So, more Phlog than Blog is what this will be, in fact it may be something of a rant.

I hadn’t intended to go to this match, but I got an email  saying tickets were available and I’m like a jackdaw with a shiny thing, I just can’t resist, especially when it comes to watching the World Champions, I bought buy ticket, then checked my diary, when I saw that I’d intended to watch West Ham play Liverpool, hey ho, football v rugby?  No choice really!

I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this Barbarians match, the team was largely full of players I’d never heard of and to a large degree it felt like All Blacks Possibles v All Black Probables.

I should have known we’d be served up champagne rugby, it’s what the Barbarians are all about, and this set up didn’t disappoint.  What did disappoint is the fact that there were 20,000 empty seats.

I paid £55 to sit behind the posts and bearing in mind I paid £108 to watch England play France in the 6 Nations I didn’t think that was bad.  But, I’m a single adult with, at the moment no children to take to the sort of match that would win a child over for life.  In a few years time I’ll have 3 Grandsons at say 10 and 9, I’d love to take them, but at that price it would be virtually impossible.

At the Women’s Cricket World Cup Final tickets were £5 for children and Lords was full, numerous boys and girls saw a fantastic game of cricket and will likely be fans for life.  An opportunity was missed at Twickenham, both teams deserved to play to a full house.

The Barbarians took a lead in the first half, scoring 2 wonderful tries with firstly Richie Mo’unga crossing before an intercept by Steven Luatua enabled George Bridge to add the second,  it was the stuff dreams are made of.  As was TJ Perenara’s try, he started the move from a scrum and was there with an acrobatic finish to get the 5 points on the board.

The score was Barbarians 17 All Blacks 10 at half time and I suspect there may have been a few words in the All Blacks’ dressing room at half time because they came out all guns blazing in the second half to score 3 unanswered tries.

The Barbarians weren’t down and out and had the last word with a try by full back Bridge.  The score finished on Barbarians 22 All Blacks 31, it was a great game of rugby that should’ve played to a full house.