Three lovely things from the Rugby League World Cup.
Item 1 - The players have been doing a really good job of the fan interaction thing, Sonny Bill Williams in particular, but Billy Slater, having just been helped off the pitch with a re-occurrence of a knee injury that he had to have known would probably be tournament-ending, went above and beyond. I'll let the official RLWC 2013 facebook page, take up the story.
>>You may have seen Billy Slater being helped from the field during his side's win over USA today. What you didn't see was the Kangaroos full-back putting a smile on the face of a young fan, who had plucked up the courage to tap Billy on the shoulder in the tunnel area and say 'hello'. The Australian spent time with the boy and his family, before heading back into the changing room and hobbling back out to hand the boy a gift - his match-worn Kangaroos socks.<<
The man's magnificent.
From the comments section, very much [sic] - >>Coming from an English, I think every Australian player are the best(not playing wise) but like this, and also not so long ago Greg Inglis went up to a little girl at a souths match after a ball hit her on the head and rubbed it better and asked how she was. The Aussies also, 1st game of the WC were stood in the tunnel speaking to the mascots having a full convo with them! High respect for them all!<<
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Item 2 - The various Pacific Islands tend to start their matches with a war dance. Not this Fijian team. They start with a hymn. They've also apparently managed to find the only rugby players in the world* that can sing. Because it sounds beautiful.
*I will grant that the French rugby league team are less out of tune than their union counterparts but dear lord, there's someone on the England team who sings like me and my mother, and with the same voluminous enthusiasm.
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Item 3 - After the match, the Samoan and Fijian teams join together and prayed. The crowd, spontaneously, fell silent for them. It was nice.
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The Formula 1
( Short US Grand Prix Notes )
