New Zealand v Tonga, 5:30 am, 9th September

Present: myself, David, John (his Aussie friend), two friends they made at a traffic lights party earlier in the evening, and Richard.

Pre-match expectations: hard to say. I scrambled out of bed to catch a glimpse of the opening ceremony, which as far as I can tell consisted of an hour of Maouri dancing and fireworks. All very pretty but totally lost on my 4 am brain.

Predictions: New Zealand in thumping win. Nobody can really see past that as an outcome.

Game: And we’re off! Two extremely choral yet entirely indistinct national anthems followed by a haka that is so bitty it looks like it’s being made up on the spot from the Tongans, and a haka that is quite impressive but so totally professional that it’s almost emotionless from New Zealand. Except for Dan Carter sticking his tongue out and widening his eyes. We get a slow motion replay of that; Carter not only has a long tongue but it looks like he’s been smoking or eating marmite as it has a yellow tinge.

Half-time status: the two new friends are long gone, totally passed out on the sofa. Everyone else is holding steady, including New Zealand, who go in at the break 29-3.

Full-time status: David passes out while a spirited fightback from a Tonga team that was apparently defeated at half-time makes the game more interesting than it might have been. Approximately ten minutes are spent while the islanders camp out on the New Zealand try line, hoping to get one over, which they eventually do. However, New Zealand immediately respond with a slick try, and the game ends 41-10.

Man of the match: um. Not sure. Sonny Bill Williams for the All Blacks? The game was really patchy, and what intermittent moments of brilliance that there were involved the centre.

Breakfast: bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, coffee. As soon as the game is over, the coffee wears off and everyone quickly departs: Richard to work, the rest to bed.

Conversation keywords: doing a ‘hopper’, male embarrassment, Argentina’s new foreign land ownership laws, are Facebook friends real friends.

Comment: both David and his friend were wearing green (for the traffic lights party). Does anybody ever wear any other colours to a traffic lights party? What is the point of going to a traffic lights party if you're going to wear red? And so on.