Present: Chance, Stephanie, Mercedes, Trevor, Jon, Cameron, Juan Pablo, Marcelo, Elisa and me.
Pre-match expectations: a good game from an Argentina who were either robbed in last week’s narrow defeat to England or are flattering to deceive and actually pretty rubbish. Lucky for them that they’re in the same group as Scotland.
Predictions: convincing rout by Argentina following difficult tussle with big Eastern Europeans managed by a man named Romeo.
Game: By the time enough people arrive, the anthems have already been sung. The ‘stadium’ they’re playing in looks smaller than a lot of school pitches; there aren’t many people in the living room either. It’s not exactly 5:30 am, but people are struggling to get into gear.
Half-time status: can this be the same Romania that gave Scotland such a scare the week before? This team is being eviscerated by the Pumas, who are 19-0 up before twenty minutes have passed. Chance is explaining the rules to Stephanie who is doing her best to keep up. The Argentina kicker, RodrÃguez, is continuing his indifferent form from the England game and misses a few less than challenging kicks. Still, following a brief flurry and a Romania try, the half-time score is 26-8 to Argentina.
Full-time status: Romania have proved through this performance that despite having a world ranking of 17, they are far from being able to compete with the big boys. Having said that, Argentina were more opportunistic than enterprising, taking advantage of slack defending and an early second half sin binning for Mihaita Lazar. The Romania breakaway run that looked like it was heaing for a try, only for the ball to be picked up by Imhoff who sprinted in the other direction for Argentina’s fifth try, was but one example of the mis-match. One can only wonder what this performance says about Scotland… The final score was 43-8.
Man of the match: Argentina’s zippy full back, Lucas Amorasino.
Repast: left-over sushi, salami and cheese, several litres of beer.
Conversation keywords: there were several Yanks and uninitiated, which led to lots of rule explanations, shudders or exclamations at tackles and yawns during pauses in play.
Comments: Argentina are not going to win the World Cup, but they might beat Scotland.
No comments:
Post a Comment