It wasn’t one of those ‘I was there’ moments. I was there, of course, though I wasn’t, as I was behind glass in the Doncaster media box, frantically trying to find a working plug socket.
Not that it mattered, because you didn’t have to be there. Few were: 4,000 was the announced crowd. Who cares? Much as the last two days in World Cup discourse has been dominated by attendance chat, Greece’s entry onto the biggest stage changed the conversation.
Where you had to be was in the bar in Athens, which exploded with delight as Siteni Taukamo gathered Jordan Meads’ kick and flopped over the line for Greece’s first try at the Rugby League World Cup, where rugby league was illegal until mere months ago.
The video posted by the Greek Rugby League has done tens of thousands of views on Twitter, closely followed by the clip of their second try, a Billy Magoulias chip caught by Nick Mougios, who turned French fullback Morgan Escare inside out for a superb, instantly memeable score.
They don’t post videos of the bars in France, but you can bet that they were bouncing earlier too, as les Chanticleers marked their first win since 2013.
It’s games like this that make it all worthwhile. On the sideline, Nick Politis mingled with Trent Robinson – on opposing sides tonight – while the starting halfback of the South Sydney Rabbitohs came off the park alongside a bloke who discovered rugby league while in holiday in Melbourne, picked up his first Steeden in 2019 and currently turns out in the second team of a park footy side in Warrington.
“Our spirit was there,” said Lachlan Ilias, who doesn’t play for Woolston Rovers A.
“I couldn’t be prouder of those boys efforts, especially the Greek boys who haven’t played at this level before. We have to be happy with that and look forward to the future.
“It’s unreal having those (domestic) boys. It’s a massive effort to get here, but we have to take that step further.”
Theodoros Nianiakas, who played off the bench, was part of the domestic contingent that played in clandestine circumstances before moving to Warrington to improve his game.
When he left, rugby league was outlawed and teams such as Nianakis’ former club, Aris Eagles, had to play in fear of the police breaking up training sessions.
Perhaps it was appropriate, then, that their first World Cup game was against France, who wrote the book on rugby league rebellion when their sport was shut down by the Vichy regime and rugby union officials in high positions within it. Mike Rylance, who actually wrote the book, The Forbidden Game, was in attendance in Doncaster, too.
The gap between France, drawn entirely from Super League talent, and Greece was always likely to be too large to overcome, but the balance of play was continually shifted by the debutants.
France played sensible, confident, physical football, as befitting a side expected to win. Greece struggled to match them in the middle but played with abandon in the second half, forcing their more powerful opponents to react with wide passing, chip kicks and changes of angle.
It was fitting that their first try came from a superb kick from Meads and their second from a similar play from Magoulias – a very familiar move from the Galloping Greek, who pulls out of the chip chase play roughly three times a game in the blue and white of Newtown Jets.
“I’ve seen Billy do that a couple of times in crucial moments, and it’s good to have guys like him on the field,” said Ilias.
“We dug ourselves into a hole and tried to get ourselves out of it, but it was too late. They were good, they ran hard through our middle. There’s a bit of work for us to tighten up there.
“They iced their opportunities and we didn’t. There was some nice tries at the end, but if we had that in the first then it could have been a different result.”
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