So sadly this is the last time my blog will be based from Dunedin. Over the last three weeks I and Greg have experienced unbelievable hospitality from our student hosts. So with great sadness we embarked to our final weekend at the student digs on Friday. We had a nice quiet night of a relaxing game called beer-pong, a game I had never partaken in before. Needless to say I was convincingly the loser, and went to bed excited for the big England game on Saturday.
Come Saturday and we organised a nice little pre-match visit to the Speights brewery in the centre of the city. After a rambling hour talking about hops & beer history we enjoyed our all you can pour free samples of Speights five premium beers. It certainly got us in the mood for the rugby; we also had a spare ticket for the crunch tie, which we gave to our couch-surfing host Liam for free. After all he did help us out all those month’s ago when trying to sort our accommodation for the pool games in Dunedin, it was the least we could have done.Onto the game and England needed to silence the doubters over their World Cup credentials. After less than impressive victories against Argentina & Georgia Martin Johnston’s needed to step it up if they wanted to give themselves a chance to win the World Cup. England started well with fly half Johnny Wilkinson who found his kicking form early with a first minute penalty. England didn’t relent against an initially strong Romanian defence; the ball was being worked well in the break down by England which lead to a well worked try from Mark Cueto on the fifteenth minute.
Cueto went onto score a first half hat-trick in eleven minutes as England’s wingers went on the rampage. The returning Cueto & Northampton Saints winger Chris Ashton both scoring a hat-trick of tries. With the charismatic Aston swan-diving on all three tries to the delight to travelling English fans. England went in 34-3 up at half time.
England didn’t relent in the second half with midfield pairing of Mike Tindall & Manu Tuilagi looking dynamic against the Romanians. Tuilagi was particularly impressive breaking the Romanian defensive lines, he capped off a strong performance with a try on the 61st minute. Wilkinson made way for Toby Flood in the second half and continued kicking well, which leaves Johnston with a potential selection dilemma for the game against Scotland on Saturday.
The match finished 67-3 with England scoring ten tries overall and will go someway to improving moral in the camp, especially after fresh allegations of Mike Tindle canoodling on that night out in Queenstown. Bigger tests of Scotland & France (Depending on results) lie ahead, and with arguably in the ‘easier’ side of the draw you can certainly see England in the semi-finals.
After a brilliant match we watched the All Blacks convincingly beat France at our student digs. Again a result which will go someway to breaking the 24 years of hurt for AB fans, a big cheer also went up for Richie McCaw who looked great in his special silver 100 cap. Then we piled into town for one last time to celebrate our respective wins. So after three memorable weeks with our Scarfie mates we are onward to Auckland via Wellington. Let’s hope we experience more of the same legendary kiwi hospitality up in the North Island. 
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