大象传媒

Star-struck by the All Blacks (44)

• Tom Fordyce
• 19 Sep 07, 02:55 PM

Aix-en-Provence, Wednesday - Delightful though the home city of and (Emile, rather than Gianfranco) is, there was only one reason why The Bloggernaut was blocking its cobbled streets this sunny morning: the mighty were in town.

So far on this trip, we鈥檝e only heard distant rumbles of the favourites鈥� inexorable progress whilst chugging down autoroutes or perched in the stands at other games.

"They put how many past Italy? Seriously?鈥�

鈥淭hey did what to Portugal?鈥�

So intimidating were the tales reaching us that silence descended on the van as we approached the Stade de Georges Carcassonne.

What sort of monstrous , would be waiting for us?

Would the forwards be wrestling enraged grizzly bears, flown over especially by assistant coach Steve Hansen from the snowy mountains of western Canada?

Would the backs be smashing their way through solid brick walls as fast as a crack team of builders could erect them?

Would be reclining on a velvet-covered chaise-longue while beautiful Provencal virgins fed him chilled grapes from a diamond-encrusted replica of the William Webb Ellis trophy?

Maybe. But not in the brief 20 minutes we had to stand and gawp pitch-side.

In that time we saw the following:

鈥� three minutes of jogging at granny pace
鈥� two minutes of intense listening to assistant coach Wayne Smith
鈥� 30 seconds of drinking from water bottles
鈥� five minutes of gentle passing moves in the backs
鈥� four minutes of touch rugby-esque drills from the forwards

I鈥檓 aware that doesn鈥檛 add up to 20 minutes, but we missed a certain amount of action when we were pinching ourselves and whispering, 鈥�!鈥� like a couple of weak-kneed, star-struck teenagers.

I did take the opportunity to walk bare-footed across the turf behind one set of posts, in order to fully appreciate how perfect the facilities were, and I can report that the grass was so soft you could have curled up in it and slept happily for a thousand years.

Sadly, we were shown the door before Ben could attempt to make himself famous by spear-tackling a surprised Richie McCaw.

As we were pushed out of the gates, huge-armed security men in Matrix sunglasses closing in on us like human wrecking-balls, we did catch the briefest of glimpses over our shoulders of the real training starting up.

If you鈥檙e reading this, Frank Hadden, I can say only this: it looks like the All Blacks will be using line-outs against you at some point. But you didn't hear it from me, OK?

Weirdly, as we left All Blacks HQ, the chemical toilet in The Bloggernaut started to smell rather unpleasant.

There鈥檚 no nice way of putting this, but it increasingly seems that someone has broken the 鈥渘o numbers twos鈥� rule.

Who? I don鈥檛 know. It certainly wasn鈥檛 me, and Dirsy swears on his packet of fags that he鈥檚 done nothing more than sprinkle and tinkle.

I don鈥檛 like it. I don鈥檛 like it one little bit.

Tom Fordyce is a 大象传媒 Sport journalist travelling around France in a camper van with Ben Dirs.

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