SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER
Auckland, New Zealand 20 Australia 6
MONDAY
Walk down to the Parnell Baths and up past the posh houses above them. Am strolling back into town when there is a knock on the window in the old Northern Steamship Company offices, now a pub. Inside are Mike Watkins and Rob Ackerman of Wales circa 1984. "Spikey" now lives in Bangkok, Rob in Wellington. It takes us five hours to decide the early 80s were difficult times. Nick Farr-Jones happens to pop in. We are reminded just how difficult. Happy days.
TUESDAY
Go to the Wales team announcement and have a quiet word with Toby Faletau. There is no other thing you can have with the smiling, great puppy dog No8, who, I hasten to add, does not play like that. He's had a fabulous World Cup; now he goes head to head with David Pocock as a No7. Wow. He smiles and says nothing. Shane is talking about retiring, but perhaps not yet.
Evening meal at Prego (see North & South passim) and bump into the most enormous man in the universe, Norm Hadley, ex-Canada and Wasps, and Glen Ennis, also ex-Canada at three World Cups. Norm is going to do something massive – there is no other way with Norm – with a hedge fund and Glen is a stuntman, specialising in walking around on fire, in the Vancouver film industry.
WEDNESDAY
I fall into the past, looking back at the 1987 World Cup final. I was working at BBC Wales as an assistant producer, logging the game as it came in at 3am. It wasn't a great final, but that first World Cup did have its signature game: France-Australia in the semi. Everything about the modern World Cup is bigger, except the rugby needs a lift.
THURSDAY
Bump into Norm and Glen again. Glen tells me about the Canada-South Africa game in Port Elizabeth in 1995, when the lights went out before the game. And Glen's went out during it. He was kicked unconscious and remembers it (hazily) as the most violent game of his life. James Dalton, Gareth Rees (about to arrive in Auckland to be inducted into the Hall of Fame) and Rod Snow sent off. I remember it because I drove from Durban to Boet Erasmus stadium in PE through the Transkei. Turned on the radio to hear warning about armed gangs outside Umtata. Where was I? Just outside Umtata. Slightly unnerving 10-hour drive. Caught plane back to Durban.
FRIDAY
Wales 18 Australia 21 Beautiful weather. The French are everywhere, even though it's mini-final day . On the Fan Trail I meet two Welsh supporters who arrived only this morning. They are from Pembroke Dock and a little weary. So are Wales, except Faletau, who, even against Pocock, is still immense. Another forward pass goes unspotted. Lots of blood. This has been a bleeding tournament.
SATURDAY
Off to the Coromandel Peninsula. Unashamedly non-rugby day between the finals. We are a strange bunch, bleary‑eyed, clutching our swimming trunks for the warm-water spas on the beach. Not a pretty sight, really.