British Expatriate Network

You may remember me mentioning about some of my friends back at home talking about the rugby world cup and saying how England have done crap so far. Well, after England beat Wales, they came up with this corker of an explanation.

"You see, the games rules are all wrong. The way they judge the scoring is messed up. Wales should have won that game. In Gaelic football (my eyes began to roll about now) they score differently depending on whether the ball goes under or over the bar. If that Wales England game was gaelic football Wales would have stuffed them. Seriously, they should change the rules."

They then proceeded to go on and on about how everyone knows the refs wont let England, France, New Zealand or the Aussies lose.

I simply said "whatever makes you feel better about losing." Bothers me this whole soft-racism. I consider myself as an adopted welshman in some respects - my mother was Welsh and lived there a fair while, so it gets my goat when you encounter this stuff.

You know, Wales will go home thinking they have turned the corner after a few years of basement dwelling in the 6 nations. But come next janaury, it will be the same old Wales. Do they honestly believe that the team who made it this far in the World cup, is that much different to the team that struggled for most of this year?

Should be a cruching game against France in the semis...

Actually, from my friends responses back home they do believe Wales have turned the corner. The feel Wales are knocking on the door of the big 4. But in reality, there is no bigger cynic of Wales than the Welsh are against different parts of Wales. After the "we should have beat England" talk, my friends went into a hysterical rant about ho wthe last Cardiff games was so biased ("as always") towards Cardiff that it is disgusting. Most Welsh people I know, including family members would give limbs to have Cardiff and Swansea removed from the game in Wales.

Personally I'd like to see the demise of Llanelli, I hate the scarlets

Judging by the times I've been to Swansea and Cardiff, that wouldn't be difficult to arrange.