egg-chasers are kings for the day

ouch.
it was a big day of sport in england today. the football fans had as much interest in scotland topping their european championship group that includes italy and france as a yankees fan had this afternoon in baseball. instead, they cheered england on at new wembley, where they gained a first-half cushion of 3 goals, including a stunning header by an estonian from the edge of his own penalty area. wayne rooney scored his first competitive goal for three years. england won 3-0. again. bring on the russians and their plastic pitch next wednesday!

the less said about england's last one-day cricket match against sri lanka the better.

which brings us to the england rugby team. they were playing in the world cup semi-final. they were playing france. in paris. tens of thousands of rugger buggers descended upon the city whether or not they had tickets. prince harry sat in the stadium, wearing his england shirt.

england are the current holders of the cup, but they were not expected to do very well this time around, especially having been stuffed 0-36 by south africa in the pool a match-up. i watched the whole match live thanks to wembley dave and his slingbox. it was not a great experience, if one judges it by the standard of rugby played. on the other hand, if you are into team sports, something magnificent took place this evening. i watched what it means to be a team. these guys put everything they had into the game. and they backed each other up. i'm not sure about some of the body parts one has to hold onto in the scrum, but i saw the pack joining strength to strength. johnny wilkinson's boot may not have been so trusty early on, but he made some immense tackles. in an interview afterwards, he said that his body has never been so sore after a game.

nu - i'm really not a big fan of this sport. right now, though, i am incredibly impressed by the nature of england's victory. at school this week we have spent massive amounts of time and energy on trying to teach our students about community and teamwork. i think they understand it intellectually, but their average age is about 9 years old so it's still hard to get it in a visceral way. In some strange way, this win by the egg-chasers makes me feel quite hopeful about being a teacher!

btw, the pic is of england's josh lewsey scoring the only try of the game in the 82nd second