BY SIMON UTSU
All is now set for the Rugby world cup final between England and South Africa later today. Credit must be given to those behind the running of sports in England because asides getting to this final, their men’s cricket team won the cricket world cup barely a month ago and four English league club sides made it to the two European finals this year, resulting in Liverpool winning the Champions league and Chelsea winning the lesser Europa league trophy.
Not forgetting that legendary British/English racer Lewis Hamilton, is currently topping this year’s formula 1 charts by a mile, and is in pole position to be the winner with just three Grand Prix left. If this isnt unprecedented sporting dominance, what then is? The English sports ministry deserves a whole lot of accolades.
Back to the Rugby final. I was able to understand the game of Rugby much better when I worked as a match day steward at the Leeds Carnegie stadium sometime in 2012. Before then, I used to view it from the football perspective. It’s a bit similar to a war between two sides- the side with the better formation takes the day. In essence, tactics are of much more emphasis in Rugby than anything else. Much more than is obtainable in football.
I’m only interested in this final because the star player for the English team Maro Itoje, has Nigerian ancestry- both his parents are from Delta state; he is only English by birth. That isn’t to take away the collective brilliance of the entire team which some pundits are saying is their best in history.
Digressing a bit more, on to the science of the sport, another Nigerian (Nigerian-American), Dr Bennet Omalu deserves everlasting credit for his groundbreaking research that established a connection between this game and brain related diseases suffered by retired athletes. That discovery won him several awards and research grants- and I personally think it would/should have won him the Nobel Prize for medicine/physiology if not for the color of his skin. It was also adapted into a blockbuster movie, “Concussion” by Hollywood, starring legends like Alec Baldwin, Will Smith and Dr Omalu himself.
Again back to today’s game. I see England routing South Africa to win it easily. Their star player and man of the match in the semis, Maro Itoje is very Naijacentric- he is a huge fan of Nigerian music and its entertainment industry. If you peruse his social media platform feeds, you’ld see that he’s up to speed on Nigerian stuff and I think the recent faceoff between Nigeria and south Africa due to the xenophobic attacks, will inspire him to star even brighter today so as to score a point for Nigeria as well as for England.
I’m predicting that its going to be a one sided show in favour of the favourites, England. Congrats to the Champions in advance!
Simon Utsu is a social commentator and sports enthusiast, he writes from Lagos, Nigeria
