Pride.

What an emotional day here in the land of 'les bleus'!

Woke up early this morning after a tumultuous night sleeping, for both me and my bed partner (yes, thats weird) thanks to the continued feeling that I was on a rollercoaster. When it wasn't me waking myself up from feeling like I was spinning and turning, it was N waking me up from doing the same thing!

Anyway, we woke up, dazed and disorientated from a bizarre night and headed just down the road from our appartment to meet up with friends at Oz bar. We arrived at about 9.40am and it was PACKED. We couldn't even get in at first but ending up using a bit of Kiwi ingenuity and going in the back way and clearing the tables so that we could stand on them. We assumed we'd get told off and made to get down but we held our flags proud and they didn't dare to tell us off. Anyway, there were more important things to worry about for the nervous French.

The bar was packed and surprisingly (given that it was an Australian bar) it had barely any All Blacks supporters. We were definitely outnumbered and were constantly aware that should we lose, we needed an emergency escape route.

Watching the All Blacks do the haka was probably the best part. I was pretty close to shedding a tear watching the boys do their thing. France seemed to get pretty amped over the fact that their team could get themselves into a pre-planned, much recited V formation. There's just something about watching your nation's hero's strut their stuff in New Zealand, infront of the world, and watching it from the home of the enemy that is special! Probably a moment I will never forget.

But once the game started, all emotional moments were completely out the window. This was war.

I was tense the whole game, our Kiwi contingent watching the game (which included three American's, a Canadian, an Australian, an Irish and five New Zealander's) practically swallowed their fists with nerves. We cheered hard for anything remotely good, trying to bolster each other and ourselves that we could pull through (and consequently doing the exact opposite).

When the French scored their goal it was like the world was ending. The whole bar erupted, another round of 'allez les bleus' began (this happened frequently) and we were given the stare down. I had no idea the French were quite so rowdy at 10am on a Sunday morning, even when their national rugby team is playing. I think I can still hear their shouting in my eardrums.

But when the time hit 80 minutes we made the most of our glory and waved our flags avidly, making sure everyone knew WE were the champions. Even walking down the street afterwards, in our post-match glow, we had our flags out, walking past others who had their red, white and blue drapeau's rolled up and tucked under their arms, angrily eyeing our's; black and white, draped across our shoulders, pride sealed on our faces.

Four more years? Who cares.

Rugby World Champions 2011.