The excitement has been building at home over the last few days, as we’re heading to Paris tomorrow for the Rugby World Cup pool game between Ireland and Scotland.
It should be both an exciting and nerve-wracking game, as Ireland need to win or draw this game to ensure they get through to the quarter finals stage. If Scotland win, particularly if they get the 4-try bonus point, then it could mean that Ireland are knocked out the competition!
Scotland are quite a formidable opponent to face at the moment. They are currently number 5 in the men’s world rankings – behind Ireland, France, South Africa and New Zealand – so they are definitely in the top tier!
Flight to Paris
We’re flying out to Paris tomorrow as part of a package deal that we booked through the official travel partner of the IRFU. It’s costing us a small fortune, just to go to one game, but I think it will be worth it – just to soak up the atmosphere of being there if nothing else.
Our deal includes the flights, a 2 night stay in a hotel, transfers, and most importantly the match tickets! And it’s all paid for in advance, so our only expenditure should be for food and drink while we’re out there.
By the look of it there’s going to be a lot of other Irish fans joining us out in Paris. Checking the Dublin Airport departures board for tomorrow, there are 44 different flights to Paris! And there could well be a load of other flights departing from other airports on the island of Ireland.
What to wear
One dilemma that we’ve been pondering for the last while is which IRFU jerseys to bring with us. As you can see from the photo below, between me and my wife we have quite a selection of jerseys. Some are quite recent ones, but also some interesting alternate/training kits, and a vintage jersey that is from some time between 1996 and 2000 when Nike made the kit and Irish Permanent bank were the sponsor.
I’m not sure we need all eight jerseys for our 3-day trip, and so some of them will stay at home!