Show a little faith lads, or maybe not.
England kick off the Rugby World Cup tonight at Twickenham with their Pool A opener against Fiji, but the hosts are bracing themselves for delays caused by the opening ceremony.
Adored by sports administrators, baffling to television viewers and an inconvenience to competitors, the best thing you can say about opening ceremonies is that they get them out of the way early.
Tonight’s 20-minute extravaganza is entitled ‘Breaking New Ground’ – which is the one thing the troupe of dancers and performers have been told not to do to the Twickenham turf – and will focus on telling the story of rugby’s origins.
https://twitter.com/TV3Rugby2015/status/644547717960757248
The show starts at 6.45pm, 75 minutes before kick-off, but Stuart Lancaster’s England and their southern hemisphere opponents will have to alter their warm-ups as the pitch will be unavailable until much closer to the game than they would like.
Forwards coach Graham Rowntree said England have put plans in place before hinting at a lack of faith in the show going off without a hitch.
“We’ve spoken about it at length. We’ve changed our warm-up slightly but we won’t change much. It’s one of those things. The boys are looking forward to being part of the whole thing.”
Usually more low-key than the events to mark the beginning of football World Cups and Olympics, the rugby shindigs usually focus on the culture of the host nation – as in New Zealand four years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoH6R1kx5W8
The only war dance likely to be seen tonight is Fiji’s Cibi, but hopes are high tonight’s event will be more exciting than the last RWC opening ceremony held on British soil, at the Millennium back in 1999.
In fairness, they have upped their game in the meantime – didn’t David Beckham feature in the 2012 Olympics ceremony, on a speedboat.
As long as there is no Morris dancing there shouldn’t be a problem.
