Isn’t Mother Nature wonderful? The list goes on and on; The magnificence if the Hawaiian sunset, a murmuration of starlings at dusk, a tiger on the prowl or the majesty of the blue whale patrolling the world’s oceans.
And we also have the hippopotamus, the male hippo to be precise. Nature has given the male hippo a most endearing trait. To mark his territory against other males the hippo poops copiously and, if that wasn’t enough, he uses his fast flicking tail to fire his noxious expulsion all over his surrounds. He is natures slurry spreader and a very efficient one at that.
On Saturday, the rugby gods served us up a hippo of a match.
To be fair, the importance of the fixture, already tense because a cup plus league points were at stake, was ramped up further by the late KO, which meant both sides were aware of the other league results that day. News that joint leaders St. Marys, along with Terenure had both lost added to the sense of anticipation and jitters on and off the pitch.
The weather was also grim with a howling gale blowing diagonally from the Wingman van corner down to the left hand corner under the scoreboard. That meant most of the play was diagonally opposite to where the supporters were which gave the atmosphere a disjointed feel.