In 2003 I infamously lost a game of pool on a Saturday night at the Royal Hotel in Canowindra. The following Tuesday wearing a t-shirt, running shorts, pair of Rabbitohs rugby league socks and some moulded soul Dunlops I got smashed at training by a viticulturist who happened to be Canowindra’s openside flanker. He was an arsehole on the field and off. He was like most sevens in my personal experience– if you’re not their mate, then you are most definitely their enemy. It happened again in early 2005 when I arrived in Melbourne with the Welshman Jim Roy. One Tuesday we did this tackling drill one on one. Jim would change positions in the line to be opposite me every time I ran through the drill. Every time he’d put me on my arse, time and time and time again. Once I remember he put his hand on the back of my head and rubbed my face into the dirt. It was subtle as all flankers make it look, Jim was merely using my prone body to get to his feet ready to complete the drill again. It was the first – but not last time I could smell and taste the dirt of Romanis Park.

At half time the day of my 40th birthday party we played University of Melbourne at University ( the infamous H.G Evans ground) I was so angry with Jim’s flexing of the laws and the fact that the ref had him pinged that I shoved him ready to smash his brains out. Luckily – and not for the last time a 6ft 4 220lb English second rower came to my defence. Later Jim and I were to become as thick as thieves as they say, and if Jim rang me this very second and said he needed me I would stop typing grab my car keys, wallet and mobile and be where ever he needed me to be. I’m grateful for Mr King saving me from myself that day. Fast forward two years later, I had a row with another Englishman who was also my front row mentor – the man who literally saved my neck – Tommy Gunn (real name Mark) but the enigma of an Englishman named Tommy Gunn is too good a tale to tell – especially when I’m in England. It was again, my birthday – my 42nd Birthday – and again it was playing University of Melbourne – at H.G.Evans. I was not myself that day, I’m rarely myself at H.G Evans reserve playing University of Melbourne.

Anyway I’m jumping ahead of myself. In 2003 I was living in outback New South Wales working for the Sheep Industry as the ‘I.T Guy’. I was staying up at Armidale NSW which is where my Head Quarters where. It had been a long day of internal and external politics. I still didn’t know 95% of the laws of the game. Indeed I called them rules, and called the referee 'umpire'. The origins of this are easy to identify. I was born in Victoria and bred on a diet of nothing but AFL (then VFL) and Test Cricket. I walked away from the office early and watched a midweek game between Fiji and the USA at the pub across the road from my hotel. The USA were underdogs but they were competitive. It was the most enjoyable game of rugby I had seen to that date. I had made every effort to watch as much rugby as possible –with my four mentors from Canowindra to learn the laws as quickly as possible.

Sitting in that hotel watching USA v Fiji I had no one to explain the rules – sorry laws of the game. So I asked three blokes in safety shirts downing Tooheys New to explain what just happened. They took me under their wing, invited me to their table and, at length explained to me what was going on. That’s the thing about my origins of rugby. It’s from outback New South Wales – and out there it’s about lending a hand and chipping in and enjoying it. They loved the rugby because it was two teams playing a competitive game.

For the RWC2003 I had watched every Australian game in the front bar of the Royal Hotel. The whole bar stood and sang the Australian national anthem before every match. I missed being at the final because it was my sister’s birthday in Melbourne. She graciously – and probably still with regret today –let me turn the game on. “It’s just 80 minutes” I said. By the first extra time every male at the party was in the living room watching the game and I, still a novice with the laws, was explaining the things that didn’t make sense to anybody from an AFL upbringing. I thought it miraculous that Australia had made it to the final, but I learned then and have witnessed many times since that Australia doesn’t give up until well after the 80 minutes has elapsed. Australia only gives up when the referee blows the whistle three times.

As I have recounted elsewhere, my AFL mad nephew Nicholas, knew before the commentators, before me, before the crowd that Wilkinson was set up for that drop goal with only 23 seconds to go to the end of the second extra time. Wilkinson kicked the goal and Australia lost. It had been a great game of rugby, Australia were valiant competitors but England were a machine and were absolutely cold blooded and ruthless in dismantling Australia ‘up front’. I congratulated my brother in law – who is English. I, because of what I had learned from my four mentors, and those blokes in the safety shirts, enjoyed the game – but was disappointed in the outcome. That night in 2003 I was miles from the concept of ‘Anyone but England’. If the game was competitive then I enjoyed the rugby. If Australia lost I was disappointed – but I certainly didn’t want to barrack against whoever had defeated Australia, and if I’m honest, I felt it was about time England had won something. I knew vaguely about 1966 Soccer World Cup and we were at the time in 2003 smashing the English in test cricket in 3 days.

I love the six nations tournament because it is and was and forever will be very much ‘Northern Hemisphere’ rugby – which is to say it was forwards rugby, and being a forward I had much to learn, and watching the world’s best upfront was the best next thing to playing them. The ‘Southern’ hemisphere school of play focussed on getting the ball to the backs as soon as possible and using the forwards to ‘secure possession’ and not much else. It didn’t help that my playing years were spent during one of Australia’s worst droughts. The pitches were hard dry and fast, which exacerbated ‘southern hemisphere’ rugby.

In 2004, 2005 I made friends, tight, close, honoured friends at the Melbourne Rugby Union Football Club. Nearly all were from Britain and they had infused me with a sense of Anglophilia that has resulted in 3 trips to Britain in 3 years, with a fourth planned next year.  I discovered during the Australia spring tour tests that some of the English would with a passion - even more fervent than supporting England - barrack against Australia no matter who we played. Including the French. This given my deep reading of English history and the cliched phrase ‘Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys’ struck me as odd. No more than odd, it struck me as bizarre. Surely an Englishman’s interest in France v Australia is a good competitive game of rugby? Nothing more than that. I learned, with some distaste, and indeed morbid fascination, that it wasn’t enough to be a good game of rugby. Australia must be grinded into the ground and eviscerated at every opportunity. It confused me. Why hate us? When I learned that the English supporting France, Italy, Ireland, Fiji, New Zealand, South Africa against Australia was more passionate than supporting England my mind could not fathom such a passionate hatred.

In the 2006 Six Nations I went to watch a game and turned up in a Scotland jersey – I think because Neishy had said Scotland were going to need as much support as possible because England were going to massacre them. It was a 'stir the possum' moment. It was meant to be light hearted, by the end of the night, it was not light hearted it was 'Heart of Darkness' territory. Olly – a mate and a hooker, was not mortified, or even aghast, and sure we were all a few pints down, but I think the word 'traitor' was used. I was there to lend Neishy support – after all, he was the single Scotsman in our pretty tight forwards pack group. A bet was made: if England win I was to wear the jersey back to front for the rest of the evening. I knew Scotland were screwed before kick off but I made the bet in good faith and when England massacred Scotland was asked to turn the jersey back to front. I did.

I had to explain to every girl, every Scots, Welsh, Irish and English man at Bridie O’Rielly’s why I was wearing it back to front. I did. It was a bet, I lost. I was still a good sport. Then in a moment of amber clarity (thanks to the pints and the fact that I had only just learned to scull them) made the connection between Collingwood & England. It was as lucid a moment as I could have given the inebriated state I was in. The words of Gore Vidal echoed in my head on the way home in the taxi that night ‘It’s not enough that I succeed, others must fail’. I said it out loud in my drunken stupor and the Taxi driver thought – yet again – that he had another loon in his car about to deposit his liquid supper over his dashboard.

From that night, that moment, the English had made – at least in a sporting sense an enemy of me. What’s worse, I had, like a bolt of lightening from above, the zealot’s passion of someone converted to the faith. In the beginning it was moderated, scared to be given full voice. It was – in fact – gutless largely because Australia’s front row was gutless too. I supported the British Lions because Boysey had discovered my Welsh Grandparents and while I had always suspected that my Grandfather in the Australian War Memorial records and National Archives was who he was, Boysey found the proof –in my father’s own handwriting from a return address which was the place I grew up. I with all seriousness wanted to pick the English corner out of my Lion’s jersey.

Fast forward to the 2007 Rugby World Cup and I had changed. I had morphed into someone who was so passionate about England losing at any cost. I had become something that my parents would have been horrified at the mere thought of. I had become the classic bad sport.

In RWC 2007 I was on rugby ‘Tour’  - a thing of infamy - when Australia lost to England in the quarter finals. I was drunk and out of my mind in some slick fugly Gold Coast bar when it happened. The wound of losing the quarters was great. Losing to England made it greater and my English friends too great glee – almost to a level of gluttony, rubbed salt into the wound and crushed my passionate, rugby convert broken heart. There was no good humour, it was as cold hearted and jack booted as it could get. When South Africa played England in the RWC2007 final, I really did barrack for the referee.

This year for RWC2011 I made my intentions loud & clear, early & strong. I would be supporting anyone but England. It has infuriated some of the English that I am proud and honoured to call my friends. However, as will be demonstrated today if Australia loses to South Africa, some of my English friends ‘Anyone but Australia’ policy will be in full voice – after the event.

After I made the announcement of ‘Anyone but England’ I was reminded when Australia lost to Ireland at the Liffey in Stockholm what it was like to shake hands and congratulate the opposition when they defeated Australia. I had in all honesty forgotten that sensation. The Irish in the bar were humble victors and a sense of honour rushed through me when I and the other Australian supporters were noble in defeat. I thought as I shook Irishman after Irishman’s hand in the ‘Liffey’ it’s been a while since a victory has been celebrated so humbly and a loss taken so graciously in my presence. I immediately texted Tommy, Jim & Olly. Olly’s text didn’t get through because I forgot the +61 country code. I couldn’t be stuffed resending. I walked out of the Liffey 4 pints down stunned, head down & gutted. Our path to the final had in that one game been made virtually impossible. I never imagined us getting past New Zealand in the semi finals and I still don’t today. But South Africa in the quarters bought memories of 2007 flooding back, and the pain of that moment is as fresh as if it was yesterday. I was so despondent I burned through 100 AUD on a shell and pea game organised by the Turkish Swedish mafia on the streets of Old Stockholm and knew I was getting fleeced. I didn’t care. It was that kind of despondency. I know last night after England losing to France that my English rugby mates will have felt ten times worse than I did that morning in Stockholm.

If the English want revenge on my revenge, they can have it. For me, now, I don’t care who wins this Rugby World Cup. Of course I’d like it to be Australia, but if it’s not then so be it. What last night’s English loss immediately brought to mind was the moment England lost to Portugal in the Soccer World Cup and every Englishman in the room was gutted to an inch of their life. I had never sensed such immediate and utter remorse & grief in a group of proud, strong, honourable men. I know that’s what they felt last night, and I don’t revel in recognising that they will have relived that grief stricken moment. It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold. I haven’t been cold blooded at a rugby match ever. My ‘Anyone but England’ revenge has me deeply conflicted this morning. I certainly in the past years have not enjoyed being on the receiving end of ‘Anyone but Australia’ and despite a few moments last night, haven’t enjoyed dishing out ‘Anyone but England’. I want to shake my opponent’s hand and buy him a beer at the end of a great game of rugby. Not reach for the salt and the bile to rub it in so it hurts all that more. That’s not rugby, that’s not sport, that is desolation, loss & war.