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An ode to lady luck - England miss out again

2nd December, 2017
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Australia players celebrate at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup (NRLPhotos/Grant Trouville)
Roar Guru
2nd December, 2017
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1895 Reads

The World Cup final for 2017 was about as intense a game of Test match rugby league as I have ever seen.

It was a relentless display of grit and iron-will from both Australia and England, but perhaps none more so than England who were tipped by no small number to be thumped.

The thumping, though, never occurred. Aptly dubbed the ‘Wall of White’, the England players stepped up to the challenge. A sign of their continual improvement throughout this tournament, England’s cresting the hill of performance was mesmerising to watch.

Wave after wave of Australian attack thrust itself upon the Wall but the wall held. England had Australia contained. Even with the odd mistake at the wrong time, England fought through them.

Defensively, England had turned up. Offensively, they were still a work in progress. “Don’t worry, I nervously thought. They are just fine tuning.”

It is almost a cliché to say that athletes need to peak at the right time. After all, there is no point in playing your best at the beginning of a tournament only to fizzle out when it counted. New Zealand provided enough evidence of that folly during this World Cup.

Step by step throughout this tournament, England were on the march. Super coach had them ironing out their rougher edges and peaking when it mattered.

In fact, so much so that during the match, through wave after wave of heart forging defence and the scoreline trapped at 6-0, I silently wondered to myself, “Surely Bennett hasn’t coached his team to peak in the last five minutes?”

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Boyd Cordner

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

I mean, that would be nuts. Right?

And then, with only a few minutes to go, all hell broke loose.

Kallum Watkins, the man I call The Nightcrawler, shimmied and shook, swerved and swooped, sliding delicately into a sliver of an Australian defensive line gap and set off to salute the sky.

England fans who had been wondering, wondered no more and cried out, “They are going to do it!”

We shouldn’t have said those words though. England fans know them as a curse into the night.

We all know who listens to those words. We all know their effect on the world. Lady Luck glanced and, sigh, how England know that glance. They know that glance as well as any man can know the void.

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I don’t know what master plan Wayne Bennett had for his Wall of White. I don’t know if he really did plan for England to explode into action in the last five minutes of the final? Whatever his plan, though, none can compete with a glance from the Lady.

The wheels were in motion now and as the heavens rumbled, stars shifted and destinies were set. The Lady’s instrument? One Joshua Dugan who clipped the Nightcrawler’s ankle….

… and England lost.

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