Well, an England win of course, a few scintillating tries and an unlikely meeting with New Zealand's delicious Dan Carter.
Sadly I came away from south-west London disappointed on all three fronts, although I did have a brilliant day and it was a fantastic occasion. Oh, and the fact that England didn't get rogered by 30 points as I predicted also helped.
Here is my day in pictures...
After hitting the M1 at 8am as planned, the irritating roadworks around Nottingham took their toll which necessitated a slightly earlier pit stop. After parking up at Oxford services, my Dad noticed the registration plate of the car in front of us:
Was this an omen for England? Why try (when you know you're going to get your arses kicked?)
Putting aside that unsavoury thought, we battled through the traffic and arrived at Twickenham stadium for 12:30pm.
Oh look, it's the player's entrance. How handy.
After speaking with a friendly steward with dodgy peroxide blonde hair, I ascertained that the arrival of the teams was imminent. Excellent. Time to sharpen those elbows...
Team England rocked up first, and despite my best efforts I was pretty rubbish at getting any good photos. Still, here are the best ones:
Jonny!
Danny Care, Simon Shaw and Ugo Monye
I decided that a better viewpoint was required for the arrival of the All Blacks, so Dad and I climbed the west stand stairs and waited for the NZ team bus and the moment I'd been longing for...
DAN! DAN! DAN!
Don't worry, I didn't shout or make a tit of myself. I just took this photo of him walking along with his head down. Grr.
With the players safely arrived, Dad and I decided to refresh ourselves with a luke warm beer. As my Dad is a smoker we drank them outside the west stand in a delightful location next to some bins whilst he puffed on his pipe. It is here where I noticed something rather amusing, given the current questions surrounding the England set up:
Yes that's right - Rob Andrew is poised to fall into a bin. Irony or prophesy?
With my Dad finished sending smoke signals we decided to have a nosy around the stadium and see what was happening on the pitch.
Lo and behold, it's Jonny Wilkinson practising his kicks/curling out a poo.
We watched England and New Zealand warming up for a while at their respective ends of the pitch and soon enough it was time to take our seats for the game. A giant cross of St. George was draped across the pitch by some lovely army lads, and then the England team ran out to blasts of fire:
Top of my Christmas wish list: a flame throwing camera.
The teams lined up for the anthems...
...and then you can read my review to find out the rest.
It was a great day even though I sadly didn't fulfil my Quest to Meet Dan Carter, my Dad and I both really enjoyed ourselves.
It's just a shame that it is such a long drive to get there...
Hopefully when I venture down to Twickenham again the result will be slightly more favourable.
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