It was truly bizarre

But still a great day. We started by getting the train to Cardiff (capacity 1000 odd, tickets sold, at least 1300) - standing room only and loud, mouthy Kiwi's everywhere. And this was 10.30am...

We are not the most sophisticated of Nationalities when travelling on mass and on the jungle juice - but that is for another day.

The first pub we walked into was full of Welsh types doing a rousing rendition of 'Bread of Heaven' - this is what we were here for. We fund a slightly less jammed bar on the street and enjoyed a couple of Fanta's before heading to the ground.

The Millennium Stadium is amazing (apart from the pitch itself that is). Great facilities, easy access, lots of bars and toilets, and fantastics views from every seat. It is the caketins older brother - it really is. The stewards (numbering in their thousands as well) were helpful and friendly and all was going swimmingly.

To our seats went we and prepared ourselves. Boy and I share an emotional side when it come to these things. The Welsh crowd were singing, then there was a minutes silence - which was immaculately observed and added to the tension.

The New Zealand anthem by Hayley (she gets wheeled out fairly regularly over here) and the Fanta had really loosened the larynx. T'was a good showing if I may say so myself.

Then 'Land of My Fathers'. Click here to listen to the chorus if you do not know what I am talking about - and then imagine 70,000 people belting it out with the roof closed.

Dad loved the Welsh choirs, many a car journey was punctuated by them, so to admit that there was a couple of wet ones slipping down the face holds no shame here. To quote Big Chris from Lock Stock, to this point, 'it's been emotional'.

To go from emotional to incredulous in literally seconds is a weird feeling. I was almost fearing the crescendo of the haka, such was the intensity of the atmosphere. But then, things just went weird!

No haka - kick off. To be honest - they might as well have been playing soccer for the first five minutes. No bugger would have noticed. 75,000 people all looking at eachother quizically, the Welsh do 'confused' very well BTW ;-). So they had done it in the dressing room for reasons reported, not reported, accurate and spurious - I'll leave those machinations for the Talkback Shows.

What I will say, as someone who was there, was that it was handled very, very badly Not a single announcement, nothing. And then the images of the AB's doing Ka Mate in the dressing room, rather than being some sort of conciliatory gesture, served only to deepen the confusion and farce.



Good result mind! Live rugby is a completely different spectacle. Observation of the day - Dan Carter's vision is outstanding, Carl Hayman's mobility and work rate - astonishing.

3 hours standing on the way back home with a few good sorts, and one complete brick. Not bad I suppose. Home by half 11 and out for the count.

As far as days go, this was long and was seemingly fairly simple - go and watch a game of rubgy. But it also managed to fairly well cover 'the emotional range' to boot.