By David Gough 0800(AET) 10/10/03
October 10 2003

Well the kick off is imminent and our Roving Reporter in the field, David Gough has sent us a wire as to how the atmosphere is building up in Perth. David is English lives and works in Perth and has a good sense of humour as you can see. (Like Ernie Wise...... the play wot I wrote)!

Rugby World Cup - Atmosphere

Well finally, here it comes, as I write this, its exactly 10 hours to kick off in RWC 2003.

The country is simply buzzing. Take Perth for example, everywhere you go there are groups of people milling around waiting for the pubs to open. People with Georgian, Uruguayan, Samoan, South African and England shirts on... plus the many and varied premiership football team shirts.

In the pubs, the talk is all about the cup, people who you have known for years, and know they don't have absolutely any idea or any interest in rugby football are even talking about it........... some of them are even making sense!

It is literally the biggest thing to hit Perth ever. When the ashes cricket test matches are underway the undercurrent isn't this electric, even when the Wallabies play here in Perth on their once a year pilgrimage to spread the rugby gospel to the western shores, the public imagination isn't captured as it has been with this competition.

In three hours, at 11 am in Perth city centre, there will be a "meet the players" session with representatives from all the teams involved in Perth, as I walked past the area this morning on my way from the train station, there were already a few people gathering, hoping for a glimpse of their heroes.

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Big Thank You to David, who will also be sending photos through to us also - so keep watching for that.