Wednesday, 20 October
COVERING TOURNAMENT RUGBY away from home isn’t conducive to healthy living. It’s often eat what you can, when you can, and in France, that often means grabbing a baguette on the move. With a bandy knee, morning runs will be out of the question so instead, we’ll be closely monitoring the step counter on our fitness app to help balance out the effects of all that bread and cheese.
The more steps, the better. This is a mantra The 42 repeats internally as our first day at the Rugby World Cup gets off to a painful, sweaty start. Unable to check into our Paris accommodation until 4pm, we lug our suitcase across town to pick up our accreditation at the media centre in Roland Garros. It’s a beautiful spot located around the corner from PSG’s Parc des Princes and the Stade Jean Bouin, home of Stade Francais. We can’t help but head down for a look.
When we arrive at Roland Garros, it turns out the accreditation pick-up is closed for the week. We’re advised to head to an alternative location, one metro stop from our accommodation. An hour or so later, the precious pass is secured, and after a couple of hours working in a cafe, the keys to the apartment are handed over. Thirteen hours after we left the house in Dublin, The 42 is settled in Paris. It’s been a good day for the step counter: 23,157 steps, covering 16.69km. There should be bonus points for the suitcase.
Thursday
7,015 steps, 4.85km
After a strong start on Wednesday, our first full day in France involves plenty of travel, but little physical movement. The first assignment is an early start for a trip out to the Springboks camp, around 50km north of Paris. A train leaves us in the nearest town, a 30-minute walk from the team hotel. The 42 and one other member of the Irish press pack feel like the only souls in town until we find some South African journalists in a nearby bakery. It’s bucketing rain, and the various taxi apps laugh when we try arrange a lift. The kind woman behind the counter rings a local driver to help us out and as we wait, Jean Kleyn walks in for a coffee before boarding a train to spend his day off in Paris. “What are you doing here?” Kleyn asks. Good question.
We eventually get a cab and spend the morning speaking to Jacques Nienaber and Siya Kolisi. It’s been worth the trip. On the way home, train troubles leave us stranded an hour outside Paris, so three of us squeeze into another taxi for a long, slow trip back into the city. By the time the Paris traffic forces us to abandon the journey early, we feel like we’ve gone 80 minutes against the Springboks. A peek inside the backpack shows my baguette is in a sorry state.
Back at the apartment, The 42’s other man in France arrives from Tours and looks remarkably fresh for a fella who’s been doing this for a month already. We tell him how impressive the Boks were this morning, and he reports similar from the Ireland hotel. We both can’t wait for Saturday.
Friday
9,444 steps, 6.71km
During his excellent interview with Jim Hamilton, Ronan O’Gara describes Antoine Dupont as a player who can “deflate a nation”. Those words prove oddly prophetic, but not for the reasons O’Gara was thinking.
On Thursday night, we watched France crush Namibia with some locals in the Latin Quarter. In a facile French win, each try is greeted enthusiastically but the mood changes when Dupont goes down holding his face. Soon, worried Parisians are coming in to see if the word on the street is true. On Friday morning, Dupont’s face is on the front of every paper and the Stade de France staff don’t sound convincing when they assure us (and themselves) that he’ll be back later in the tournament.
Matchday minus one is a busy one involving captain’s runs and a preview podcast at the stadium. We go for a late dinner near Jardin du Luxembourg, where some of our colleagues are feeling adventurous with the menu. One half of The 42 takes the special fork to tackle the escargots but this writer is happy to decline the invitation. If they looked good enough to eat, why put them back in their shells after cooking?
Saturday
20,141 steps, 13.84km
It’s a 9pm kick-off at the Stade de France so there’s plenty of time to kill and no shortage of ways to go about it in this wonderful city. We set out early for a walk along the Seine, basking in the beautiful French sunshine, before a leisurely wander around the Musée d’Orsay. The place is packed with green jerseys, and we bump into another colleague in the impressionists room. We admire Van Gogh’s Starry Night and quickly preview tonight’s big game.
Paris is heaving with Irish supporters, and with delays expected, we arrive at the stadium four hours before kick-off. Already, there are large groups of fans milling around. The game is a cracker, the occasion breathtaking. In the post-game press conferences, the Ireland players are buzzing but acknowledge the need to drive on. They intend this to be the first of many big wins in Paris over the next few weeks.
We dissect the game as the last media shuttle bus leaves us around the corner from the Arc de Triomphe and from there, we jump straight into a taxi to go to our base near Notre Dame. We fall into bed at 2.30am, the only Irishmen in Paris who haven’t toasted the win. It’s been a brilliant day.
Sunday
14,121 steps, 9.86km
Our apartment is perhaps too close to the action in Paris. An off-key rendition of Ireland’s Call from the streets below wakes us at 5.30am. Today we’re off to Lyon, where Wales take on Australia in a crucial Pool C game. When logging on to the train WiFi to write up last night’s interviews, the automated surname on the form is set to ‘Dupont.’
The train station in Lyon is thronged with rugby fans, with New Zealand, Italy, Wales, Australia, Uruguay and Namibia all in town over the next couple of days. The Welsh are in fine voice, but the Australians have travelled in hope more than belief. It’s disheartening to hear their pessimism on the tram out to the 59,000 capacity OL Stadium.
It’s another good trek out to the ground and when we unwittingly bypass the elevator and end up taking the stairs all the way to the top tier, the only other member of the travelling Irish press in Lyon despairs. We just focus on the precious steps we’re getting in.
The stadium is brilliant, the game shockingly one-sided, and Eddie Jones threatens to leave his press conference when asked about his future.
Another shuttle bus and taxi ride gets The 42 home at 2am. We momentarily panic when our key fob doesn’t open the door. Standing on a quiet Lyon street in near total darkness, after five minutes of pushing buttons and rattling the handle, we take a step back to assess the options. To our right, an identical door with a crucial difference. The building number taped in small, dark writing above the frame – the correct building number. It’s been a long couple of days.
Monday
19,340 steps, 13.76km
A precious lie in as The 42 is woken by the morning traffic at 7.30am. The phone is red hot after a simple picture commenting positively on the Lyon stadium invited a flurry of messages from supporters of the club explaining why their team is in such a sorry state. We make a coffee, stuff another baguette into the backpack and set off for the New Zealand training camp, located beside Lyon Rugby’s Stade de Gerland. For the week that’s in it, the nearest metro stop has been rebranded Stade de New Zealand.
Our pass allows us access to watch the last 20 minutes of the All Blacks’ training session, where former Ireland boss Joe Schmidt is running the show. It’s fascinating to watch how hands-on he is and listen to his feedback as the players rip through various drills. After, we chat to a couple of All Blacks and they speak enthusiastically about Schmidt as some of their teammates whiz by on scooters. The image of a couple of props sharing a scooter in a Titanic-style embrace might have rivalled the Peter O’Mahony/Keith Earls bike ride for viral moment of the tournament but alas, your correspondent failed to whip the phone out in time.
We return to base camp, and with the work filed and the sun retreating, we jump on one tram and two trains to reach Lyon’s beautiful old town, where Ian Foster and his fellow All Black coaches are also out for a bite to eat. The restaurants are teeming with supporters wearing all sorts of rugby shirts, and a couple of rogue GAA jerseys are also spotted. We order the traditional Lyon sausage and some local red, followed by a late-night stroll to soak up the atmosphere and continue a strong couple of days on the step counter.
Tuesday brings a flight home to Dublin before we do it all again next week. Think we’ll have something light for dinner.
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