It’s Saturday and the streets are buzzing, liquor stores are coining it while proud Capetonians walk around with Stormers jerseys.
The Vodacom Super 14 has taken Cape Town by storm and rugby enthusiasts are walking around with adrenalin sizzling in their veins. With people from all over living in Cape Town and its surrounds- there’s support for rugby teams from all over.
The Vodacom Super 14 hosts three countries - South Africa, New Zealand and Australia- facing each other. This rugby ‘tournament’ is known as the toughest competition in the Southern Hemisphere.
With tensions building up and the rugby stadiums getting packed with enthusiasts, proud South Africans buy tickets from Computicket, Sport shops make money by selling support t-shirts at R600 a pop, while young and old wait in anticipation for each Saturday.
Some don’t understand the fuzz while others cant wait for the season to end, so they can regain control of the remotes and diets with less local lekker braai’s.
Rugby is an international sport with millions of supporters. The love is inborn and passed down from father to sun, mother to daughter.
Heartache is felt, pride gets hurt and fans from all over feel the pain as each knock hit their favorite team.
We have reached semi-final levels and sadly, there is only one South African team in the semi-finals.
After a tough match my boyfriend tells me I don’t feel the pain he is feeling. It’s a sad statement since I have witnessed every test of our team, screamed with, boo’ed with and cried with.
How do you classify the pain as your team just-just miss the semi-finals with a few points? It’s sad and we are all mad, but I know we don’t even feel a fraction of what our team’s members feel.
We pick up the pieces, sip on a bit more alcohol in hopes that we will forget.
Each person takes the defeat differently. I carry on, since after all, it’s a sport and we will get our chance next year again. He is still down in the dumps, sad and hurt because his childhood team has not made it.
How do we define the pain? I don’t know. Each to his own, we learn to deal with it and carry on.
Good luck to the rest- and VIVA for the one South African team that has made it to the semi-finals.
All we can now hope for is that our South African team makes it to the finals. We wait in anticipation as our support carries on for another few weeks.