French pride
by Shawn Ashley
“We were screaming, running around and singing our national anthem.”
This was the reaction of Eva Roumégoux , a third year business major, currently doing a semester abroad, after watching France’s victory over the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup Quarter-Final Game.
Eva was one of five students from France who had woken up at eight in the morning early on October 6th to watch the game.
All five students are residents of the Wellesley Student Apartments on Mount Street.
Eva said after the final call of the game was made they ran into the quad of the building cheering. It was at this point that some of the students living in the buildings above threw some eggs and bags of water down at them in the quad.
Before the game, Eva had spoken with many of her friends from New Zealand about the game. “You can’t imagine the number of people who told me that there was no way France would win,” she said.
Despite the discouraging words from those she spoke with, Eva remained in strong support of the French team. Having watched the other games in the World Cup, and having seen the All Blacks dominate against all the other teams, Eva still thought France might have a chance.
Her reason was simple.
She believed that the All Blacks would go into the game with too much self-confidence and under-estimate their French opponents. She believes that this is the mean reason why the All Blacks lost the game.
“I still think that the All Blacks are the best team in the world” Eva said, adding “The All Blacks are legendary in the sport of Rugby. It’s quite an accomplishment that we were able to beat them.”
She said that other than the incident with the eggs and the water in the quad, she hadn’t ran into anyone being rude to her because she was from France.
Eva will continue to support France all the way to the end of the Rugby World Cup. She believes their next toughest opponent will be England.