Two halves make whole rugby final

LONDON -- Our hemisphere so totally rocks, holding its own against that mouthy other hemisphere.

For four solid weeks, we had to listen to that other, Southern Hemisphere deride our excellent, Northern Hemisphere, as novice rugby observers learned that rugby people actually sit around and quibble over which hemisphere rules.

This hurt hemispherically, because among the rugged pursuits of the species, rugby pretty much makes the NFL look like high tea at the Ritz-Carlton.

The bottom half of the Earth jostled us to the core as Argentina upset host France on opening night, South Africa drilled England, 36-0, Ireland floundered, Wales struggled and the United States remained rugby plankton. Meantime, New Zealand surged, Australia soared, Argentina bolted from obscurity to a semifinal -- and a barrage of flak blared northward.

Then the world turned.

England shocked Australia, 12-10, in a quarterfinal, France flabbergasted New Zealand, 20-18, in another quarterfinal, England edged France, 14-9, in a stirring semifinal, meaning England will play South Africa in the final Saturday and our hemispheric honor remains.

Then, in a bonus byproduct, those of us who have followed rugby long and hard for . . . for . . . for about five weeks now, we got to view a world-class fan-base conniption.

And even while the fan-base conniption here involved New Zealand, endearing country, just 4 million people, home of rugby’s All Blacks, who inspire the coolest sports garb on Earth (if you lack an All Blacks shirt, you’re a loser), that did not diminish the spectacle.

In its national game, New Zealand entered the event favored to win and breezed through the pool stage with scores such as 76-14 over pretty-good Italy, 85-8 over Romania and 108-13 over Portugal, a match that brought delight to the Portuguese over their heady 13 points, even to the fan who vowed to drink one beer for every Portuguese point scored against the Kiwi mastodons.

An abrupt quarterfinal exit, then, loosed the following and glorious New Zealand Herald headline: “Inquest Begins Into Shock All Blacks Exit.”

Inquest!

Commentary ensued, the hilt coming from Murray Deaker, the host of a New Zealand radio show and a former player, if not for the national team:

“Sadly we are a dumb rugby nation, we don’t play the big matches well. We play them in a boofhead way. We were a bunch of boofheads playing out there against a French side that isn’t that good. On the big occasions, we choke.”

The comment pointed out the crying lack of the word “boofhead” in American sports commentary, as in, USC played Stanford so boofheadedly.

The best diagnoses, in New Zealand Herald postings: “My suggestion: introduce daily meditation for the team and yoga to follow.”

Or: “I think their behavior off the field is shocking. Getting drunk etc. is disgusting.”

Sure enough, three nights after the New Zealand team’s collapse, police at the Hilton Hotel at London’s Heathrow Airport arrested Doug Howlett of the All Blacks, but only because he drunkenly trampled upon two vehicle windshields in the parking lot while wearing some sort of plant pot on his head, and he did so for the eventual viewers of closed-circuit TV.

In September, the Australian reported, the New Zealand Embassy in Washington, D.C., sent out flash invitations for Rugby World Cup semifinal and final viewings at the embassy. The invitation promised “New Zealand beer, light refreshments, and copious amounts of Kiwi armchair commentary.”

It sounded like the greatest fun this side of the Colorado Rockies, but the staggering defeat wrought a rescind. “During this sad and difficult time,” an embassy honcho wrote puckishly, “we ask that you respect the embassy’s grieving process. We have been reliably informed that life after rugby does go on, but we are not yet ready to believe that proposition.”

And our side? We barge on, risen from earlier morbidity, behind our main man Jonny Wilkinson. The blond English Hercules kicked the ball between the uprights dramatically in the closing seconds of the 2003 World Cup, giving England the title, 20-17, over host Australia. He also kicked it through four times against Australia and twice late against France to turn a 9-8 deficit to a 14-9 win.

He also wrote this in his guest column in the Times of London: “Standing over that penalty with five minutes to go was nerve-racking. You can see your shirt moving with your heartbeat.”

You can see that as a hemisphere, we’re gifted and eloquent. No way we’ll lose 36-0 to South Africa from here.