what had happened. Wales, with just a 3–0 lead and sixty minutes of the semi-final still to play, were without their captain and down to fourteen men.
Across the world commentators and fans were complaining about the harshness of Alain Rolland’s decision. Online a flurry of protests broke out on forums and websites covering the match. A yellow card, it was felt, would have been fair. The tackle had gone too far, but there’d been nothing malicious in Sam’s intent. When Sam himself , however, was shown an image of the incident, he immediately accepted Rolland’s call and said he saw no reason to appeal, accepting the citing board’s judgement of a three-week ban.
In most rugby matches, on being presented with an advantage like Sam’s sending off the opposing team would pile on the points. In international rugby, to lose a man like Sam is to lose strength in the scrum, dominance at the breakdown, cover in defence and support in attack. It is to unlock the door of victory for your opponent . Somehow, though, Wales held on and the match remained close. But their rhythm was broken. The story wasn’t meant to go this way, and it began to show.
Wales’s fly-half, James Hook, missed a penalty. France, meanwhile, kicked three. A dummy and darting try fromscrum-half Mike Phillips brought Wales back into contention , but James missed the conversion. Then Stephen Jones, replacing James, missed another penalty. With just six minutes of the match left and the score lying at Wales 8 – France 9, Wales were awarded yet another penalty. The story, after everything that had happened, could still find the ending for which Wales had hoped.
The penalty was just inside the halfway line, forty-nine metres from the posts, so it was Wales’s long-range goal-kicker, twenty-two-year-old Leigh Halfpenny, who stepped up to the mark.
When Leigh was nine, his grandfather started picking him up from his primary school in Pontybrenin to take him for kicking practice on the rugby pitch in Gorseinon. If he was tired, Leigh’s grandfather would still persuade his grandson to practise. ‘Come on now,’ he’d say with a smile. ‘Let’s get it done, is it?’ Towards the end of a session he’d sometimes try to put pressure on him too, telling him, ‘One more, is it? But this one’s to beat England,’ or ‘This one’s for the final of the World Cup.’ As Leigh grew older, he needed little encouragement, practising his kicking every day of the year, including Christmas Day. The England fly-half, Jonny Wilkinson, became his role model. Leigh read all his books and watched all his DVDs just so he could study his hero’s kicking technique.
When Leigh was fifteen, he caught the eye of the Neath and Swansea Ospreys academy. But at the age of eighteen the Ospreys dropped him for being toosmall. Determined to make it in top-level rugby, Leigh embarked on a stringent weights regime, putting himself through sets in which he regularly ‘lifted to failure’ – until his muscles could no longer work. His parents spent thousands on nutritional supplements. At the age of nineteen, having just been signed for Cardiff Blues, Leigh made his debut for Wales.
Three years later, under the floodlights of Eden Park, Leigh prepared to take the kick for which he’d practised all his life. This was his schoolboy’s dream made reality: the penalty that could take his country into its first-ever World Cup Final. After all those hours with his grandfather on the pitch at Gorseinon, after all those years of building himself up, after the pain of the Spała training camps in Poland, the moment he’d envisaged so many times had finally come.
Removing his skullcap Leigh placed the ball on the kicking tee as if it was the last piece in a delicate puzzle. Angling it away from him, he stood and stepped backwards and then to the side. Behind him, at his shoulder, was Neil Jenkins, or ‘Jenks’, the Wales kicking coach. Jenks, reciting a quiet list of
Across the world commentators and fans were complaining about the harshness of Alain Rolland’s decision. Online a flurry of protests broke out on forums and websites covering the match. A yellow card, it was felt, would have been fair. The tackle had gone too far, but there’d been nothing malicious in Sam’s intent. When Sam himself , however, was shown an image of the incident, he immediately accepted Rolland’s call and said he saw no reason to appeal, accepting the citing board’s judgement of a three-week ban.
In most rugby matches, on being presented with an advantage like Sam’s sending off the opposing team would pile on the points. In international rugby, to lose a man like Sam is to lose strength in the scrum, dominance at the breakdown, cover in defence and support in attack. It is to unlock the door of victory for your opponent . Somehow, though, Wales held on and the match remained close. But their rhythm was broken. The story wasn’t meant to go this way, and it began to show.
Wales’s fly-half, James Hook, missed a penalty. France, meanwhile, kicked three. A dummy and darting try fromscrum-half Mike Phillips brought Wales back into contention , but James missed the conversion. Then Stephen Jones, replacing James, missed another penalty. With just six minutes of the match left and the score lying at Wales 8 – France 9, Wales were awarded yet another penalty. The story, after everything that had happened, could still find the ending for which Wales had hoped.
The penalty was just inside the halfway line, forty-nine metres from the posts, so it was Wales’s long-range goal-kicker, twenty-two-year-old Leigh Halfpenny, who stepped up to the mark.
When Leigh was nine, his grandfather started picking him up from his primary school in Pontybrenin to take him for kicking practice on the rugby pitch in Gorseinon. If he was tired, Leigh’s grandfather would still persuade his grandson to practise. ‘Come on now,’ he’d say with a smile. ‘Let’s get it done, is it?’ Towards the end of a session he’d sometimes try to put pressure on him too, telling him, ‘One more, is it? But this one’s to beat England,’ or ‘This one’s for the final of the World Cup.’ As Leigh grew older, he needed little encouragement, practising his kicking every day of the year, including Christmas Day. The England fly-half, Jonny Wilkinson, became his role model. Leigh read all his books and watched all his DVDs just so he could study his hero’s kicking technique.
When Leigh was fifteen, he caught the eye of the Neath and Swansea Ospreys academy. But at the age of eighteen the Ospreys dropped him for being toosmall. Determined to make it in top-level rugby, Leigh embarked on a stringent weights regime, putting himself through sets in which he regularly ‘lifted to failure’ – until his muscles could no longer work. His parents spent thousands on nutritional supplements. At the age of nineteen, having just been signed for Cardiff Blues, Leigh made his debut for Wales.
Three years later, under the floodlights of Eden Park, Leigh prepared to take the kick for which he’d practised all his life. This was his schoolboy’s dream made reality: the penalty that could take his country into its first-ever World Cup Final. After all those hours with his grandfather on the pitch at Gorseinon, after all those years of building himself up, after the pain of the Spała training camps in Poland, the moment he’d envisaged so many times had finally come.
Removing his skullcap Leigh placed the ball on the kicking tee as if it was the last piece in a delicate puzzle. Angling it away from him, he stood and stepped backwards and then to the side. Behind him, at his shoulder, was Neil Jenkins, or ‘Jenks’, the Wales kicking coach. Jenks, reciting a quiet list of
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