麻豆社

It鈥檚 the stuff of nightmares for some very tough men. By ten o鈥檆lock this evening, England could have become the first host nation to be eliminated from a rugby world cup without leaving the pool stages. The arithmetic is tricky, but the stark reality is that if Australia beat them by the tiniest of margins, they鈥檒l be gone, shredded by the critics and reduced to observer status at the party which was meant to be theirs.

Which means that for possibly the first time in my life, I鈥檒l find myself, along with many other Welsh people, supporting the Aussies. I bear no ill will to my neighbours, but solidarity has its limits when an English defeat would guarantee that an embattled Wales team will go through.
I realise that large numbers of people ask, What鈥檚 the fuss? And there are indeed infinitely more important issues to be bothered about in an unstable world where poverty cripples, a gunman can kill randomly and millions flee war and terror. Set alongside these, talk of triumph or tragedy in a mere game can suggest a dangerous lack of proportion.

But we can be just a little too earnest about all this. Almost everything from the music which carries us through our day to our enthusiasms about food or clothes or books or whatever might be equally insignificant to the larger picture; yet they can also express something of who we are; and it鈥檚 only if we obsess on them that we鈥檙e in trouble.

Even many in Wales who get irritated by the fluctuating hysteria or gloom surrounding rugby recognise that it鈥檚 become part of the national identity: it鈥檚 something a little country can do well, and if we do, however irrationally, people feel better, walk taller.

I can still remember the days when at international games this passion blended with an even larger one. The pre-match music majored on great hymns of the Christian faith, their words familiar to large sections of the crowd. As they lifted their voices in celebration of what God had done in the past, so they seamlessly joined their thanks with hopes for what their team might shortly accomplish - though they knew full well the difference between the two.

That鈥檚 long gone, but the echo remains every time a contemporary crowd in Cardiff attempt to lift their players with a spontaneous chorus of Bread of Heaven. How many of them realise that they鈥檙e singing one of the greatest of hymns by the 18th century preacher William Williams, Pantycelyn, I don鈥檛 know - or that the words are a statement of personal weakness, and a plea for deliverance in the face of death. Bread of heaven - feed me till I want no more, they sing; but the sustenance on offer is much more than a feast of spectacular tries. I keep hoping that they鈥檒l taste it.

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