The journey out was, Southampton to South Ruislip by car. Tube to Bank. Bank to London City Airport on the DLR. LCA to Zurich with half the plane flying on to Munich for Oktoberfest, the rest of us changing (Beer and Burger King) and then flying down to Nice. Arrive in the dark, go to the hotel. Get up the following morning, still dark, and get a train from Nice to Marseille. Metro to the ground (get off at the wrong stop and have to get back on) changed vouchers for tickets… 12 o’clock, time for a pint.

It was worth it too. We ended up with the worst seats so far, as part of the pitch was obscured by a fence, but the game… oh that game. How Australia got two penalties for collapsing the first two scrums is beyond me. Their forwards just weren’t there. Even when we had subbed the entire front row they still couldn’t cope.

OK, maybe England still weren’t brilliant, but we won. We looked pretty good at things like the scrum and lineout, which has to be a positive. Then there was the crowd, we found our voice and were surely worthy of a few points ourselves. We still gave a penalty away in the last seconds and could have lost it, but we didn’t, we beat Australia 12-10.

That evening we got the TGV back to Nice. We were the only three English in the carriage, however, there were four French near to us and six Aussies. Anyway, I fell into conversation with a few of the Aussies, as you do, then joined them for a beer… it wasn’t long before the girl was relaying the commentary of the New Zealand v France game, direct from someone at the match. You had to be there. The whole journey ended with the guard making cockerel noises over the PA, he was very happy.

The rest of the weekend was pretty good too. Sun, sea, snails. Yes, I have now tried ‘escargot’ and they weren’t too bad. Nice is a pretty city and well worth a visit, Marseille may be nice but I didn’t get to see much of it and some of it does smell like a toilet. Oh, and the organisation for getting match tickets was terrible, but then our French friends aren’t renown for their organisation.

Anyway, we beat Australia and next weekend it’s France. I’m on the 3.30am Eurotunnel to France on Saturday morning!!