Sunday 21 October 2007

Springbok Class

Our papers were simply outstanding today on England's defeat and the RWC in general. Sandwiched in the middle of yet another outstanding article on the RWC was this brilliant story I hadn't heard before:

After Fiji went down to South Africa in their quarter-final in Marseilles, they marked their exit with the longest lap of honour of all time. They wandered slowly around the field, apparently acknowledging each of the 55,000 crowd individually, full of Fijian ritual and thanks. It must have been about 45 minutes after the end of the game when they came back to the top of the tunnel. There, still waiting to clap them off, were the Springboks. That was class.

I also noticed that the Springbok bench stood to applaud Jason Robinson when he left the field. That's class too, and I suspect that a lot of it stemmed from their dignified coach, Jake White.

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