Gutted, but on the day the better team won - well done South Africa! And please could we have some half-sensible weather………

It may well have been an inter-coach windup, but damn it if Warren Gatland wasn’t right in “suggesting” that we had played our final in that epic display against the All Blacks in the semis. My slight worry all last week was of course whether England could turn up for the final of the World Cup and come anywhere close to their incredible semi-final performance, and the fact is that they didn’t - South Africa outmuscled us just as we did the same to New Zealand in the semis. A huge congratulations to South Africa on such an emphatic win…………..

If there is one side we had to lose the final to, I would always want it to be South Africa. I don’t pretend to properly understand the multitude of problems that such a magnificent country is beset with, but I have spent a hell of a lot of time with (mainly white) South Africans over the years, and I have also worked and travelled a lot in Africa - including South Africa - so I hope that I have at least half a clue as to how much that momentous victory on Saturday morning means to their country as a whole. To watch South Africa’s first ever black Springbok captain raise that trophy aloft was something else, and way beyond sport itself. As gutted as I am that we were so comprehensively beaten, I find it impossible to feel anything but hugely positive.

Positive about the win and what it means for a country that is beset with the kinds of problems we will never know or fully understand. Positive that the South African rugby team is a far stronger reflection of their society than it ever was, and that the non-white players in the team who are playing a traditionally white South African sport are in there as more than equals these days. Positive for such an incredible Rugby World Cup in Japan, and hugely positive once again about the future of English rugby and the fact that our team is so young. They lost a game of rugby at the end of the day, and whilst I would imagine they are hurting beyond belief, they are so many positives to come out of the overall experience. Roll on the 2020 Six Nations and of course the 2023 Rugby World Cup!

I wish I could feel so positive about the weather we have been getting down here in Cornwall though! I let Storm out at about 5am on Saturday morning and it looked like the trees out the back of our house were about to come down. I don’t know if it has been verified yet, but I read about a recorded 113mph gust of wind up on the north coast around about the same time I let the dog out on Saturday morning. We saw a number of trees and big branches down when we all went out for a proper dog walk after the rugby had finished and I had managed to compose myself, and it goes without saying that the coastline is a mess. We went for a walk on our local beach yesterday afternoon and in fact the conditions looked pretty damn nice for a surf fishing session - save for the fact that the water was a properly horrible brown colour and I would imagine also full of weed. On the webcam this morning it’s as brown as brown can be.

I so look forward to November and December for my bass fishing each year, whilst obviously having to accept that we can do no more than take the weather conditions we are given and roll with them. Some years we can successfully fish for bass with lures right through to early January, and some years we can’t. Last November was fishing really well and then we lost the whole of December due to the weather conditions, but it’s only the 4th November today and things are not nearly over down here - if we get a break from the weather. My rods are sitting on my rod-rack, rigged up and ready to go. I have a few lure boxes always full of lures for specific locations and/or types of marks I tend to fish at this time of year. My waders and waterproof jackets and smocks are hanging up and looking at me somewhat mournfully as I stride past them to take the dog out for multiple walks a day whatever the weather is doing. I have got plenty of work to be getting on with but I am ever-ready to head out fishing. Pretty please?