Last Sunday morning I awoke just as the watery winter sun was casting its early cold light through the trees. Typically, I lay there dozing for a few minutes defragging my brain.
Obviously, I had woken still alive; this is always a good sign.
I noted the weather – any kind of weather is welcome at my age, so long as it is weather. No weather could also mean I was dead and did not know it (I really do need to know if I am dead?)
And, after a car-less six months there was also a newish Tarago in pristine condition in my driveway – mine as of last Friday, unless I had dreamt it.
I know that Billy the Bike which I started riding daily almost two years ago to stave off death will be jealous of the Tarago; bicycles can be like that – perhaps you didn’t know.
All good, so far. Tick, tick.
But then a bloody black dog started barking somewhere in the back of what is left of my mind. Something was ominously wrong. It then hit me like a rampant Tongan Thor…
But first, let me set the scene: I live for two good reasons:
The first is the love I have for my nine-year-old son and the love he so overtly shows for me.
He was a very late arrival in my life, hopefully the last shot in my ancient locker, so to speak.
I do not live with him but that changes nothing; he is the single greatest joy of my existence as I hurtle towards my dotage.
I have a duty to stay alive just as long as I can – for him. He needs to remember his father, although a couple of his five half-siblings just might question that.
The second reason is that I live, quite seriously, is for rugby union, more specifically for the Wallabies.
I reside in a 160-year-old, falling-to-bits house here in North Adelaide, a lone outpost in serious, dangerous AFL territory.
The house vividly reminds me of me. Most decent folk would baulk at living here but it’s rental-cheap and has provided a roof over my head these last 13 years.
It leaks profoundly in places and bits – sometimes chunks – of masonry keep falling from the ceiling.
Until a few weeks ago I was a sub-tenant, but the head tenant moved out taking most of the furniture with him. He did however kindly leave the 1970s television set in the lounge and a small table-trolley.
I have since acquired a sizeable pinkish lounge suite complete with a poof which was still sitting out on the verandah. I grabbed the poof and carried it inside to sit on while I watched the Wallabies vs All Blacks game last Saturday night.
Beauden Barrett of the All Blacks (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
I plonked my wine and my dinner (lamb shanks garnished with nostomini and jus a la Leonardo; whipped, garlicked potatoes and Brussels sprouts with cheese sauce liberally dusted with ground black pepper) on the little table, sat down on the poof and, quivering with anticipation, took a quaff and waited for the game to start.
So, picture an ageing man sitting on a big, pink poof in bare, cold room watching rugby union on an antiquated television set.
Apart from seeing his boy earlier in the day, this is the highlight of his week, sitting on a large pink poof notwithstanding.
He is a man grateful for small or weird mercies.
It starts: Ah, there’s my old mate, Gordon ‘The Grey’ Bray now, another relic; I am in good old company, eh?
Warbling anthems please and now the haka, Ka Mate, not Kapa o Pango thank God, but at least the latter is now performed minus the appalling slit-throat gesture; I have been blamed for putting an end to that – I jolly well hope so.
It was cheeky, indulgent Kiwi nonsense by whoever thought it up.
Conversely, in the build-up to Saturday’s game I was deeply uncomfortable that Wallaby captain, Michael Hooper, had been permitted to run his mouth off by confidently talking up the Wallabies chances.
Beauden Barrett is tackled by Michael Hooper (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
He and Bernard Foley actually, Foley even talking about keeping the All Blacks scoreless, for God’s sake.
Idiocy personified. And naivety.
Rugby Australia’s CEO Raelene Castle should have taken the pair of them out the back and given them a decent spanking on their bot-bots for that; waving a red rag to a big, black, short-tempered bull (and ended up waving a white one).
And another to Michael Cheika for good measure, perish the thought.
Half-time: Mmm, 6-5. The tender shanks have been dealt with and the wine is running low, but we are at least winning even if it’s by one precarious point.
Impossible at it may have seemed, could a miracle – a Wallabies victory – be at hand?
I have a brother across the ditch who promptly turns off the television when, on rare occasions, it is clear the All Blacks are about to lose and carts himself off to bed rather then see out the inevitable loss.
I was always critical of this because, because even if the Wallabies were losing I always stuck out the broadcasts to the bitter end.
No idea why – masochism perhaps? Stupidity?
[latest_videos_strip category=”rugby” name=”Rugby”]
Not last weekend though; seeing the Wallabies massacre that suddenly exploded in the second half I threw the last of the wine down my neck, turned off the television, exclaimed ‘Bugger this!’ to the air and hobbled off to hide in abject misery under my doona and to take some brief respite in succumbing to the arms of Morpheus.
And that’s where I was the next morning when that wretched black dog began its barking.
Black bulls, dogs, jerseys – black, black everywhere I look or think. Worse, I have just had a flash of Eden Park next Saturday night: a baying sea of ghoulish black – a veritable Kiwi blackout – and likely an inevitable black result.
I, along with goodness knows how many other Wallabies supporters, am not sure how much more of this I can take.
He was born 1905, 1904 or 1908 according to various reports, in Wairoa, Hawkes Bay, and is remembered as one of the great Māori players.
I don’t really get the comparisons between Joey Manu and Sonny Bill Williams. I realise they have the Roosters in common, along with a…
All Blacks star Jordie Barrett has announced a sabbatical to play with Irish club Leinster at year's end, while committing his future to New…
There are those who will forever play the man - and not the ball - where TJ Perenara is concerned. The All Blacks and…
I well remember the day a New Zealand Rugby staffer put their hands on me. It seems I’d made them angry.The Wellington Sevens was…
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) have described the players' union call for the board to step down while governance reforms are carried out as a…
