Well, we’re all Welsh now. Love the country, been there loads of times, adore the Millennium Stadium, in fact I’m about as Welsh as it’s possible to be without actually being Welsh. And I will be up at 9.00 a.m. on Saturday, cheering the wonderful Wales team on. On the other hand, my mum was half French so God knows what will happen.
This World Cup has been about as dazzling as you can get. To those harrumphing about the poor quality of the games against the tier two nations, just see what Tonga, conquerors of France, have to say about that. As for England, well let’s move swiftly on, though two surgically enhanced cheers for Danny Cipriani, who has had a superb World Cup. He hasn’t put a foot wrong after all.
Now we have the ideal last four in New Zealand, the most inventive teams, playing with the best spirit, and three of them coached by New Zealanders. But it’s the marvellous, youthful Welsh who seize the heart. Six of the starting side against Ireland last weekend were not born when Wales last reached a World Cup semi-final in June 1987 — Leigh Halfpenny, Sam Warburton, Jonathan Davies, Dan Lydiate, Toby Faletau, and that extraordinary man of Anglesey George North, only 19 but more than 17 stone and blessed with the explosive force of a charging rhino. How’s that for a boy band with the XY factor? Then throw in Jamie Roberts, who had a marvellous game, and Rhys Priestland, who was barely crawling at the 1987 World Cup, and you have eight of the starting XV aged 24 or under.
This feels like a team that was being built for the 2015 World Cup but is so good it burst open early, like a daffodil fooled into thinking spring starts in November.
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