ON THE WALLABY- 18th July 2007

”The rugby is the story of a ball with some men around . When you finish with the ball, the men and the friendships are still there. Everyone who plays rugby has gold on his fingers afterwards. We want to show to the kids this golden powder that is left on the fingers when you play rugby” – Jean-Pierre Rives, legendary French Rugby captain and player

CAN THE WALLABIES WIN THEIR THIRD RUGBY WORLD CUP?

Next Saturday afternoon will occur one of the pivotal Rugby Union games on the 2007 Rugby international calendar.

Not, it is not the 2007 World Cup, it is the decider of the 200 Bledisloe Cup and Tri nations competition and the two competing teams are the NZ All Blacks and Australia’s Wallabies. It is also most probably a preview of one of the semi finals in the coming World Cup and so much hangs on the result.

Strangely enough, the pressure is all on the All Blacks and with the NZ fear that once again their team will ”choke” at the business end of the World Cup, it is as much a game about mindset as about Rugby with Australia, given up by many some time ago as RWC threats, having nothing to lose.

And is the “mindset” of Rugby that has made me draw on former French great Jean-Pierre Rives (pictured below)

for in typical Gallic fashion, and passion, he has encapsulated what Rugby is all about.

Very few ever reach the lofty heights of international football, especially in a national side, and the reality is, whilst Rugby League players in the main thrash about trying to understand the point, Rugby is essentially a player’s game.

It is about making friendships and spreading, as Jean-Pierre so eloquently wrote, “the gold dust onto the fingers of children” and now, with John O’Neill’s return to the helm of Australian Rugby,hopefully more funds and time will be spent on developing not only our Wallabies and Super 14 players of the future, but also players like myself who had a lot of fun, drank plenty of rum and beer and got progressively better in our minds as the years progressed!

In finishing, my favourite story about Jean –Pierre was when he was the French captain and ”Le Bleus” were about to take on the perennial enemy, England, at the hallowed ground of Rugby in Twickenham in London.

Prior to running on, and un-noticed by his team mates, he made two cuts in his cheeks, covered them with clear tape, and lead the team out.

After a few minutes, the game collapsed in a ruck with Jean – Pierre on the bottom. Before standing up, he quickly peeled the tape off, rubbed both cheeks vigorously and got “the claret” flowing.

Then, as he confronted his team prior to the scrum, he simply walked to each player, rubbed blood from his cheek and placing it on the Rooster logo on their jumper, said simply “For France”!

Needless to say, the French blitzed England by 40 something to nil!

Go the Wallabies!!

Carpe diem

Tony

Tony Fountain

Professional Speaker, auctioneer and author

tony@fountainandco.com

Bowral NSW Australia

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