Night Out
Peter Davies goes to a very big - and almost historic - rugby league occasion…
Wales v Australia at the McAlpine Stadium, Huddersfield. Two international teams, a different sport, a West Yorkshire venue - any Wrexham connections or relevance? Well, not many. But I'll try.
The first thing to say is that this World Cup semi-final was preceded by the most magnificent firework display; in fact, probably the most magnificent display since that Huddersfield-Wrexham FA Cup tie almost two years ago. Remember those fireworks? They were fantastic. People in West Yorkshire still talk about them - a lot more than they do about the game itself. The second, extremely tenuous, Wrexham 'link' is, well, very tenuous. Karl Connolly had scored a goal for QPR against the team that play all their home games at the McAlpine only 24 hours before the Wales-Australia encounter kicked off. Yes, very tenuous. Thirdly, I'm sure that there must have been quite a few people from the Wrexham area in the McAlpine for the Wales-Australia semi. But forget the Wrexham 'angle' on this event. This was a sporting event to savour - a fantastic advertisement for rugby league and for the slightly under-hyped and anti-climactic World Cup tournament. For almost an hour it looked as if the Welsh side might pull off what would have been one of the most gravity-defying upsets of all-time…in any sport. After taking an early lead, which was heroically overturned by a feverish Welsh side, the mighty Aussies only re-took the lead with 21 minutes remaining. They then pulverised their opponents, but they had been given a huge fright. The final scoreline was 46-22.
I had my own special reason for being interested in the Rugby League World Cup. The boyfriend of a girl I know acted as the official doctor to the Tonga squad during the early group phase of the tournament (Tonga played all their games in France). I duly received lots of complimentary Tonga RL merchandise, of which I am now very proud. So, I was quite looking forward to seeing my first live World Cup game - even though my adopted team, Tonga, were not involved. There were 8,000+ people at the McAlpine for the David versus Goliath semi-final clash between Wales and Australia. The atmosphere was excellent: a Yorkshire brass bandon national anthem duty; two giant national flags; a massive video screen in one corner; a totally efficient and reliable electronic scoreboard above one stand (WFC, please take note); and tons and tons of furry mascots. There seemed to be scores and scores of cuddly kangaroos jumping round the place; even the cheerleaders were wearing strange 'fix-on' furry grey ears. The half-time catering was excellent: decent BR-type cup of tea for 80p and solid cheese and onion pie (£1.60). The toilets were spacious and lovely, and, just to round things off, the match programme was superb. Wales ran out of steam in the last 15 minutes, but the match reports in the national press the day following confirmed my opinion that Wales, for 60 minutes, were on the verge of something historic.
And that would have been historic with a capital 'H'.