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Rugby

15th Nov 2017

France’s reaction to securing rugby world cup was Oscar-worthy

Quelle surprise

Ben Kiely

France

There’s no need for sour grapes.

However, isn’t wine essentially just sour grapes in liquid form?

You know, the French are fairly good at producing sour grapes. They produce about eight billion bottles of the stuff (thanks Google!) every year.

Remember Thierr… no, that’s unfair. Different sport entirely. Let’s just focus on rugby for now.

Rugby… rugby… losing to France in the 2003 World Cup was pretty painful. The defeat in the 2007 tournament was arguably worse. Not to mention all those years we were beaten by them in the Six Nations.  Plus there’s this…

Ouch!

The swift kick in the balls that was being hammered at home by Denmark to end our dreams of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup was followed by the sucker-punch of missing out on hosting the Rugby World Cup.

France were given the nod to host the tournament and boy did they enjoy the victory. One would swear they were just told that their arses were capable of excreting solid gold logs when the host opened up that piece of paper with that six-letter word on it.

It’s just a world cup, no biggy.

France

No, we’re not jealous at all. What gave you that impression?

The only thing that made this blow slightly easier was the fact that Ireland really didn’t have a hope in hell of securing qualification. As the voting breakdown showed, it was very much a two-horse race between South Africa and France.

The other losers (if you’re not first, you’re last) weren’t exactly gracious in defeat. They did the respectable clapping gesture, but their faces couldn’t mask their disappointment.

France

Welcome to our world, South Africa! No one remembers the ‘also rans’.