When a friend updated her Facebook status to "Allez les Bleus!" last night, I clicked over to her profile to see what exactly the French national soccer team had done this time. I was surprised, instead, by a change to her profile picture, which showed France's national rugby team staring down a ritual haka war dance from the famed — and feared — New Zealand All-Blacks. Intrigued, I hopped over to Youtube and found this astonishing video of the encounter.
You'd think that most teams would run for the hills after that kind of intimidation, but les Bleus barely flinch in the video, and Sébastien Chabal — or "l'Homme des Cavernes" ("the Caveman") as his fans call him — looks positively ready to pick a fight. Go figure -- he has a reputation as a hard-hitting bad boy. So perhaps it's not surprising that the Frenchmen pulled off an upset win, drawing comparisons to a similar 1999 upset over the All Blacks that's considered one of the greatest rugby games ever.
Wow. I should watch rugby more often.
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