The Rugby World Cup competition starts tonight in England. The first game, England versus Fiji, is tonight (UK time 8pm, New Zealand time 7am tomorrow morning). The opening ceremony is one hour before this game. New Zealand’s All Blacks are playing Argentina in London on Sunday evening, New Zealand time 5.45am, Monday. The stadium seats 90,000 people and that first New Zealand game is already sold out. Many New Zealanders live in London.
New Zealand Parliament passed a special law to allow pubs to remain open so that fans could watch the games on TV. The games are shown on SKY TV but not everyone has SKY at home. Some MPs did not want the pubs to stay open all night because they were worried there would be many drunk people. However, some pub owners say they will probably serve breakfast and coffee rather than alcohol in the early morning.
There are 20 teams in the Rugby World Cup, divided into 4 pools with 5 teams in each. The final is on Saturday October 31st, at 8pm UK time and 7am November 1st New Zealand time. The winners of the last Rugby World Cup, which was held in New Zealand in 2011, were the All Blacks. They defeated France, 8 points to 7. Of course New Zealand hopes to win again.
Type “rugby” in the search box to read about the previous Rugby World Cup in NZ.
Vocabulary
• versus – against (used for sport)
• UK time – normally New Zealand is 12 hours ahead of the UK but at the moment there is a 13 hour difference as the UK is still on summer time.
• sold out – all the tickets have already been sold
• SKY TV – pay TV
• pools – groups
• defeated – beat
Verb tense
Note present tense for games that are scheduled e.g. the final is on October 31st (Also possible to use ‘will be’ if it is not soon).
But: some pub owners will probably serve … This is not scheduled so ‘will’ is usual.