- Sean Davies
- 5 Sep 07, 02:54 PM
Cardiff
It’s been a strange sort of pre-World Cup fever in Wales, a summer sickness in the August warm-up games cooling the volatile passion of the fans.
Last year, Gareth Jenkins and his coaching team were talking confidently of the “Welsh way” and the possibility of claiming the World Cup.
It’s fair to say that the fans never really bought into that, yet, despite a record of just four wins from 15 games, the buoyant background mood inside the camp seemed to hold true – until last month’s France game.
Continue reading "A strange kind of fever"
- Alastair Hignell
- 5 Sep 07, 11:07 AM
Versailles
It is not every day that England hold media briefings in council offices.
Mind you, not every council office can compare with those in Versailles. Beneath three massive chandeliers, in a vast room decorated with huge paintings, lashings of gilt and ornate furniture, England head coach Brian Ashton produced some exquisite Lancastrian Franglais in response to a florid welcome by local dignitaries, before handing down his team for the first World Cup game against the United States this Saturday.
Continue reading "Saying it in style"
- Tom Fordyce
- 5 Sep 07, 08:57 AM
Day three – somewhere near Arras
Lesson number 62 of motorhome camping – don’t leave the window and skylight open when you crawl into your bunk at night.
Someone – I’m not naming names, but since it wasn’t me, you can probably guess who it might have been – also inadvertently turned the electricity off in the middle of the night.
“I thought I was switching the lights off,” was the mumbled excuse at dawn this morning, when the brutal reality of sub-zero temperatures in the van woke both of us up before the sun had even cleared the horizon.
Continue reading "Up with les oiseaux"
