World Cup

I got up at 2am this morning to go to an Irish Pub and watch the England v France Semi Final World Cup match. If you have been reading, you would know that I have really gotten into Rugby since getting hear, and going to watch an England game with a British friend is always fun, in fact the place was packed with Brits for the 3am start. To cut to the chase, England beat France 14-9, and for those of you not familiar with Rugby scoring, it is similar to American Football in that a try (touchdown in American Football) can result in up to 7 points. As you can see, there was not much scoring, but the game was really intense and a really fun game to watch (England came from down 1 with 6 minutes left to take the lead and win the match). Most of the people there were not expecting England to win (which I am learning appears to be the typical British expectation, that their team will fail, so if they win, they can be all the more excited), so they were very excited to see the result. My friend and I have already booked a table for next weekend's final match that will put England versus either South Africa (note they got beat down by South Africa already in the World Cup) or the surprise of the World Cup Argentina.

On a side note, much of the world thinks that we Americans are pretty simple minded people, although I have observed many things to make me believe that we are actually one of the better countries when it comes to racial tolerance (I know we still have many racial issues, but believe me, it is definitely not as bad as some other countries). I was stunned to hear during the broadcast that one of the black French Rugby players (I only noted 3 black players on France's team) had a nickname of the "Dark Destroyer." Does anyone else out there think there is anything wrong with this nickname???? Again, we have racial problems in the US, but I don't think it would ever fly if a black player of any sport was called the "dark" anything. I guess he is okay with the nickname, or maybe it is just that so many white people refer to him as this that he has just accepted, either way he should probably think about his nickname being shortened to the "destroyer" unless of course there is a "light destroyer" on the team, then I can see the name being justified...oh wait, no, that just makes it worse.