Vocal Voices

OK, so calling it a world cup is stretching the truth rather, but..

England played Tonga the other day in New Zealand. With seven minutes left of the eighty England were winning 20-0. All over, you might reasonably suppose. Not a bit of it.
Tonga suddenly caught fire and scored three converted tries in five minutes! 20-18! And had what would have been the winning try ruled out in the last ten seconds!

Fantastic entertainment - but for me the best moments were the largely Tongan crowd singing the songs of their homeland. They were truly beautiful and made this soft old sod well up.

The match should till be available on BBC I player and is well worth a look.

Thanks for that, Crommers. I was reading about England's near implosion just now.

It's certainly very moving when you hear community singing in that way. Having once been lucky enough to experience it "live", Cardiff Arms Park and the Welsh supporters in full voice does it for me.

But God Save the Queen / Jerusalem just leaves me cold, for some reason .....

Yes Tongans singing is so much better than the after match fighting they have been doing after every game their team has played in. Then have the audacity to say it’s the organisers fault as they didn’t set up segregated (by country) fan zones. Sooty, but every other nation seems to have partied, comiserated with each other perfectly fine.

Os, I used to love the old Arms Park singing. The Welsh national anthem and Cwm Rhondda would make you tingle; very emotional songs. I agree about God Save the Queen, it's a dirge. Jerusalem is better.

That's a shame about the fighting Weka, rugby usually isn't too bad for that - off the field anyway.

cromwell wrote:That's a shame about the fighting Weka, rugby usually isn't too bad for that - off the field anyway.

Unfortunately it’s pretty standard for Tongans with Samoans pretty close behind in the statistics. After a few beers they turn violent, and thump whoever is closest.