Welcome, once again, to the Weekend Edition.
As I sit here waiting for the tour match between the Reds and Wales to start, I can’t help but feel a little sad that this doesn’t happen more often. You see kiddies, back in the days when Keith and Brisnie were young men, you had to take a steamship and/or a train to tour anywhere, tours weren’t a few weeks they were a few months. You didn’t just spend a few weeks travelling to the colonies to teach the antipodean scum some manners and ruggers in a couple of test matches, you had to teach them as often as possible.
Before the game went pro in the 90s the dirt trackers used to run around on a Wednesday night against the state side in the build up to the weekend test match. The side was full of guys coming back from injury, guys hoping to catch the coach’s eye and, the reserves from the previous week’s test match. Remembering that being a reserve 35 years ago meant that you didn’t play unless someone on the field had nearly died. Seriously, ask an old guy what you had to do to get replaced in a test match in the 70s and 80s.
But, I digress.
Once rugby went professional in 1996 it became apparent very quickly that the midweek games just don’t make money, and they faded into history. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for tour matches to become a regular thing again. In most cases you couldn’t expect 25,000 people to wander out on a cold winter’s night to watch a tour match. That’s Queensland cold, not real cold, we don’t do well in the cold up here. It’s the lack of tour matches that has us coming out for this game. If it happened all the time I doubt we’d see that sort of crowd.
All I’m saying is I miss those matches. The carnival atmosphere when we had nothing to lose but with the chance of unending glory if we won. Invariably the test teams won, but sporadically the little guy got up and scored famous victories.
Ospreys beat Australia in 2006. Llanelli beat the All Blacks in 1972. Leicester beat South Africa in 2009. These victories are still celebrated today. And tonight the Reds have just failed to defeat Wales, going down by one point. What a game! I’m looking forward to Brisnie’s match review on Monday.
Well, that’s all from me this week. Have a great weekend, and remember pain is temporary, but glory is forever. I’ll talk to you in the comments.
Sully out.
