It’s sometimes a tricky business to explain our sporting interests and allegiances to our significant others.

Explaining why I support Everton (a British grandfather that taught me to love to round-ball game) or getting quizzical looks at my distraught state after the 2011 Rugby World Cup exit (thanks Bryce!) have all been part of the process. A slow process to be sure, but I’m confident she’s learning. That said, “we” still have our setbacks. Like this past weekend…

It’s on days like these where you’re simply dismissed as completely loony and polite inquiries as to how many sugars you’d like in your tea are replaced with cutting remarks about the preferred size of your straight-jacket. Or, say, pointed questions about whether you’re happy with the standard white décor for your padded cell.

It started with the Sevens. Sneaking from the bed at 02h00 to watch the Blitzbokke fumble through their lines in Wellington is probably beyond comprehension for most people (read: girlfriends). Having audible commentary is certainly unforgivable. However, eventually the reasonable hours of the Saturday morning roll around and the civilised people of the world begin to wake. By now, the Blitzbokke are out of the running and the full English breakfast is on the hob. And all of a sudden it is as if I have just landed at the breakast table from Mars as, first, Kenya proceed to beat New Zealand in the semi-final and then came within a whisker of beating England and claiming their first IRB title.

When it’s just the two of you sitting having breakfast and you’re on oscillating between delight via disbelief and ending ultimately in despair at a game taking place half way around the world, you actually start to doubt your own sanity. That is, at least for a few split seconds as you begin skipping through the channels in search of some new distraction.

Despite DSTV’s best efforts, a semblance of normalcy descends and your partner even gives the appearance of having forgetten about the whole episode. That is, until Sunday evening when you find yourself back at it as you flicking through the low 200s of the satellite bouquet only to see that Italy are going to beat France. Surely they can’t, can they? Hold on, let’s just watch this for a little bit. Okay it really looks like they could actually do this! Remembering the heartbreak from the day before, you resign yourself to a late winner from France. It never comes! Proof that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

It reminds me of the story a mate once told me, where he was woken up on a Sunday to shouting from his lounge at 06h00. He strolled through to find his housemate on the couch, engrossed in a fishing competition. I repeat: A. Fishing. Competition. He raised a quizzical eyebrow only to be breathlessly told to, “Watch this Jenkins, the English guy. He’s going to win this.”

These are the awkwardly inexplicable things that make sport truly great. It’s what really makes sport great. Often times, one can’t even begin to analyse why you can switch on to a completely meaningless game, where you have no affiliations… Only to get completely caught up in events. It’s these moments where you simply have to accept the beauty of the situation.

And you have to keep surfing for a new fixture, because – somewhere, somehow – there’s a giant just waiting to be toppled by the underdog.

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