Saturday 1st February 2025
Today England kick off their championship hopes with a trip to the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, though the “press” and the “Pundits” don’t hold out much hope against this very good Irish team, as they chase their 3rd championship in a row. However there is a lot of optimism in the England squad and everybody likes an “upset”🤞🤞
Firstly I managed to get the Scotland V Italy game on my iPad thanks to Martin sorting out a VPN for me and watched the first half whilst enjoying a suitable breakfast knowing a few beers would be consumed later; a bacon and egg roll, yummy. A good result for Scotland as they beat Italy, 31 : 19 at Murryfield
Antigua being 4-hrs behind U.K. time, the games are really early in the day so headed off to Cloggy’s for 1245-kick-off and though we got there well before KO, the place was busy. After surveying the situation we formed a plan, then executed it with precision and ended up with two high-backed stools and table space on both sides, though the tv was not “quite” straight ahead, close enough to see.
We skipped the wine and got a bucket of Caribs to drink during the match. By the time kick-off came, you could hardly put a pin between everybody, glad we had a bucket of bottles!!!!
The whistle went and England gave it their all, even surprising the Irish players and soon scored a try with the extras, 7-points on the board. Ireland then scored but disallowed as there was a foul; England let off the hook, phew. By half-time Ireland had scored and we had gone to 10-points, dare we dream of an upset??? The Irish chap by us was worried and went out at half-time as he said his nerves were shot!!!
Second half, and re-enforcement Caribs were dropped into the bucket, at the same time as Ireland put their “foot down” and showed England the way to win. The final result 27 : 22 flattered England. I see the vultures hovering for Borthwick’s blood, and noting he has lost more games than he has won, I’m not surprised!!! Well played Ireland and good luck with making it three in a row.
Deflated by the result, we headed to Pigeon beach for a swim before heading back to base, me thinks Rum is called for.
Apart from the not “unexpected” result, we had a good time, there is always a lot of banter at cloggy’s on match day; we will be back next Saturday for England V France, before heading to the airport