A Black Night to be Green

This past Saturday, September 15th, I had the privilege of attending an All Blacks v. South Africa Rugby match - their first meeting in the expanded Rugby Championship. Below is a recap of the game and experience, written in the "Purple Prose" style of turn-of-the-century sportswriters. Do enjoy.

The grass below sat expectantly, an emerald carpet smooth as a dance floor, pining eagerly for the unchoreographed monster truck waltz between Springbok and All Black. Shielded from the harsh, biting wind and rain on offer in Dunedin, the turf could have been a transplant from Versailles, with the Sun King himself as likely to run out of the tunnel as the modern-day gladiators the crowd was shouting for. The dome above shone and reflected an ethereal light, a glittering monolith standing in stark contrast to its predecessor - if Carisbrook, the original "House of Pain" was built on gritty, dirt-under-the-fingernails footy, then this, the "House of Pane" is a fitting monument to the new game; flashier, faster and made-for-TV.