Not this year rose boy
I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING this morning: How 'bout them Pumas? Sure, sure there are those who want to talk about the Springboks, who hammered the Eagles 64-15 last month during their six-week march to the Rugby World Cup championship which ended Saturday when South Africa defeated defending world champion England 15-6 in the final.
But the biggest surprise of the tournament was not the winless Eagles of the United States or the undefeated Springboks of South Africa, nor was it the early dismissal of pre-tournament favorites New Zealand and Australia in the quarter finals. No, the Cinderella story of the 20-team competition belonged to the Pumas of Argentina, who defeated Les Bleus, the national team of the host country, France, not once but twice, the most important being the 34-10 thrashing of the French in the consolation final Saturday afternoon in Paris.
You don't hear a lot about Argentina in the world of sports except around Soccer World Cup time, and now the Pumas have raised that country's international profile in a sport increasingly dominated by powerful rugby nations in the Southern Hemisphere, which have won five of the six world championship tournaments.
The United States, despite its potential athlete pool of millions more than any other competitive rugby nation, has never won more a one match in any world cup. American rugby enthusiasts keep waiting for the national team to play like, well, the Eagles. It seems like for every step forward taken by American rugby the perennial rugby powers in Europe and lands down under take two. And now they're even speaking Spanish.
The Superbowl of rugby was televised live around the world and even in Philadelphia, if you knew where to go for a closed circuit broadcast, which was why about 200 poeple showed up at Tir Na Nog, the Irish pub at 16th and Arch Sts. in Center City, where the championship match was broadcast on multiple TV screens. The crowd was pretty much evenly divided among those wearing national rugby jerseys between the white and red of England and the yellow and green of South Africa (turns out there are a lot of South Africans working in Philadelphia's pharmaceutical industry).
Early in the second half England got screwed out of a potentially game-changing try (touchdown) on a questionable call by the referee. It would have been the only try scored in a match determined entirely by three-point penalty kicks. Fortunately, it wasn't an England vs Ireland final.
Now that could have been ugly.
