"You can keep your Shakespeare:" said the great Sid Waddel "You can't beat this for drama!". Sid was talking about darts of course but what he says describes the greatest moments in any sport.

England's win in the final of the Rugby World Cup had drama and tension by the bucketload. It was more compelling than most plays. Like some frantic improvisation the pattern and direction of the game followed no plan, it was the servant of the passions and performances of the players. Sometimes when watching sport, the game can seem aimless. Players seem to go through the motions and the crowd almost longs for a plot: some direction of action that will give them what they want. But that is not sport: that is professional wrestling. Here the sportsman/actor/performer divide is not so much blurred as erased. So there is pain and emotion, "drama" and excitement, heroes and villains. All carefully choreographed, timed and controlled to deliver an enterainment package to the "sports fans" outside the ring. But real sport is not so predictable. Real sport can be dull, lacklustre and uninspired. So can any improvisation. Some nights it just doesn't happen, for all the practice and preparation put in, some nights you can still just "die on your arse". But then some nights you can really fly. Some nights you can storm the place just like some games or matches you watch will be one of those "I was there" occasions and some won't. And nobody knows what way it is going to go until the lights come up or the whistle blows.

Great theatre can move you, educate and delight you in many ways. But the actors are expressing something second-hand. They must express the vision of a director and the words of a writer. They can do that with great skill but do we see any more than the skill of an actor? What do we see of the actors themselves? In sport we see the character and personality of the performer un-mediated by anyone else's vision. For all the good intentions of the coach or the manager when the game starts it's down to the players. That's when we see who panics, who stays calm, who dives and claims a penalty, who gets up and goes for goal. On Saturday we saw nerves and passes going awry. But we also saw the steely calm of Elton Flatley and Jonny Wilkinson. We saw unbending determination to win and an un-ending determination not to loose. There was indvidual brilliance and there was collective brilliance. We saw the passion of Jason Robinson scoring a try and the passion of the fans cheering their teams. It was a snap shot of what it is to be human: to believe in things, to strive, laugh, cry and celebrate the moment.

And we won.