So here's the story. Wales have represented their nation in exactly the way you would have expected -- they play bright, exciting rugby, and they give it their all in every game. France have also represented their nation -- they did nothing of interest during the pool stages, where the games are largely meaningless, then they surprised England in the quarter-finals by jumping out to an early lead and hanging on for a 19-12 win.
In today's semi-final, probably the most important rugby match in Welsh history, the Welsh jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and looked much the better team in the early going. After 18 minutes, however, the Wales captain made what appeared to be a hard, but fair, tackle against a French player. Under the circumstances -- the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final -- most British journalists assumed that the referee would simply award a penalty to France and allow play to continue. But in this case, of course, the most relevant circumstance was that France was playing in an important international competition. So, naturally, the Welsh captain was thrown out of the game, and Wales were forced to play with only 14 men to 15 for France.
It is, of course, virtually impossible for 14 men to outscore 15 men over the course of 62 minutes, so at that point the game was effectively over. Or at least, it should have been, if France were any good. In fact, Wales's 14 men were almost better than France's 15 men. France spent the next 32 minutes building up a 9-3 lead, after which they went into the rugby equivalent of a prevent defense. Wales, being Wales fought hard to the bitter end. With 22 minutes to go, they scored a try to make the score 9-8, but missed the conversion that would have given them the lead. And with four minutes to go, Wales had a penalty kick to take the lead, but it was from the midway point in the field, and the kick came up about six inches short. And that was all she wrote.
Now you may think it's odd to have a rule whereby one team can be forced to play a man down for virtually the entire game -- it would seem to give too much power to the official and create endless possibilities for unfair results. Or you might think that even if such a rule exists, officials would be careful about enforcing such a strict penalty. But if you follow British sports, you understand that this sort of thing happens all the time. Of course, this is assuming that the British team even gets to play all of its good players to start with -- which doesn't always happen.
And so, thanks to questionable refereeing and good luck, the French are on their way to the Rugby World Cup final. What a disaster for Wales.
I am so, so glad to be an American, so that my hopes and dreams as a sports fan cannot be disrupted by international referees.
Interesting to hear the announcers' shift in tone.
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