L'Irlande vient à Wembley

[Par James Hobbs à Londres] With the arrival of the Rugby World Cup in England, younger daughter and I headed recently to Wembley in north London to see Ireland play Romania. Wembley is traditionally a football venue, but its annexing for rugby purposes made sense because of the huge attendance, more than 89,000, a record for World Cup rugby, of which approximately 88,000 were good-natured and sporting Irish supporters. We had a summer holiday in Ireland this year, and as the sounds of The Fields of Athenry echoed around the stadium, and Ireland won 44-10, we thought of all the places we had visited and imagined the Irish sitting around their TVs cheering as their team ran in six tries.

England, as polite hosts, have already been eliminated from the competition. The final – teams still to be decided – will be at Twickenham on 31 October. Go on, Ireland.