After a week’s sabbatical due to work commitments, the Casual Observer is back at work – not work work – but my home work – not homework – but work at home – the blog. Instead of a depressing blog on the Springbok’s thrashing at the hands of the rugby minnows, the Japanese – the less said the better – instead you may have another beer to drown your sorrows. I don’t need an excuse for a drink. I am balancing a Savanna on the couch as I type.

As an aside, I did not watch the rugby as I was sleeping after a cool 21km race in Irene. When I arrived at Rodizio’s in Bedfordview for Arnold’s birthday party, the first question that he asked me was the final score. The match was just finishing as I entered the restaurant. Without hesitation, I proffered a winning margin of 35 points. Fortunately I did not place money on that.

Moreover I must have been the only South African not to watch South Africa beat the All Blacks in the World Cup final in 1995 – 24th June to be exact. The mundane reason was that I was boarding a KLM flight back to South Africa at Schipol Airport in the Netherlands. Not being a rugby playing country, it was impossible to find a TV set in any of the lounges which was showing the game. A third division Bundasliga soccer match was the closest that we could get to rugby. Finally two hours after take-off, the  captain announced that as he was aware that the South Africans on the flight must be interested in the final score, he announced that South Africa had won.

The plane erupted. Even if he had announced the final score nobody would have heard. That was inconsequential. The fact that South Africa Africa after so many years of sporting isolation had thrashed its traditional rugby foe was all that counted. Joel Stransky was the man of the match with 3 penalties and 2 drop goals.