The Italian Job

For a change it was another long bus ride, this time up to Nelspruit and the Mbombela Stadium, to watch the us against the defending World Champion and 5th ranked team in the world, Italy. To be honest I was not impressed by Italy in their first game and I was really talking up our chances to all and sundry on the bus ride, though my 1-0 win to us was perhaps a touch optimistic.

We almost missed the start of the game as our bus got turned away at the stadium initially, and there were some angry punters on the bus, as I was Rosco dawdled and still got out possy just as our anthem started, perfect timing some may stay, then when Smeltzy scored in the 7th minute, pandemonium ensued, this was followed by some real anger when the penalty was given, and some nervous moments as the Eyeties dominated, it felt they had a million corners, the shirts came off at the 80 minute mark, and we roared our boys home. How close was Chris wood’s strike too?

The final whistle was euphoric and I’ll admit I was a touch overwhelmed by it all, more man and the occasional girl love, and is now tradition we all came together as one fan base and cheered on our boys for half an hour or more after, this time all the players came over, many of them throwing kit into the crowd, and Nelsen had had this dude who kept on following him around and would leave him alone who looked strangely looked like John Key. An amazing, amazing result.

The 4 hour bus ride back was long as we had run out of piss, but after a sleep a few of us hit the hotel bar, and finally the pillow at 2am. Tracey (you may know here as the topless chick who we understand is famous in NZ now, oh and I’ve set up a trademe auction sell her bra, auction: 298608639) is the last one still awake as I write, pictured below with me post match.

Apologies for the lack of good game photos on this blog but I’m getting the game photos with the guy with the best camera on tour, they will form a photo book when I get back.

Celebrate this “win” NZ!