Our first game – very exciting. The morning was spent at Osaka Castle, largely because it was on the way to the stadium. It is an imposing edifice originally built in the 1500’s, but restored and rebuilt several times since then.

We headed out early to the game in case we got lost or delayed. Needless to say none of the above happened and we arrived before the stadium opened, however the queue for the merchandise stall was already round the block – the Japanese love their rugby stash. The security wasn’t as bad as we’d expected, however the queues for beer & food were very long, so we bought double to avoid wasting more valuable drinking time. Robert then headed of to the gents, leaving me to watch over the 4 pints of Heineken. A passing Japanese rugby official took one look at me and did what any right thinking man would do, he offered me a small sausage. I quickly suppressed the urge to giggle, thanked him and took the proffered sausage with a bow. He returned my bow and went happily on his way, leaving me to chuckle to myself and wonder how I was going to explain to Robert the arrival of a random sausage.

In a blatant attempt at one upmanship, when I returned from a trip to the ladies’ loo, Robert had made friends with the entire Heineken crew, but I am of the opinion that my sausage trumps the girls in green.

The game was great fun. A game of two halves, one in baking sunshine (I burnt my arms) followed by a half-time 20 minutes downpour, before a return to sunshine. We were not under cover and so got soaked from the bottom of the waterproof down. The Japanese levels of preparedness never cease to amaze me, in the space of 2-3 raindrops, they went from full summer gear to complete waterproofs and then back again, including plastic bags in which to carry their wet gear home. We were the only Gaijin in our block and featured in many selfies. Their enthusiasm for Italy, & Sergio Parisse in particular, is matched by my own, but they too were won over by the Namibian spirit. All in all a grand day out, we were even allowed to stand in the Fanzone next-door and watched the first half of Ireland v Scotland, but I think that was only because the ground was too wet to sit on.

We dashed back to the shoe box to watch England v Tonga, but that’s another story…