IT'S cold and it's dark. I'm in a suburb I don't know, surrounded by young men who seem hell-bent on maximising physical damage to those around them. This is not the way I'd intended to spend a Friday night but, then again, I had never intended to be a rugby mum, either.

They say rugby union is the game they play in heaven. It's certainly provided me with many great memories here on earth - although the ones from the 1999 World Cup remain a little blurry. There was vodka. There were cheek tattoos. There was an Australian flag worn as a cape ...

I've embarrassed myself as a journalist by bursting into clearly biased tears when Jonny Wilkinson kicked that drop goal in the closing seconds of the 2003 World Cup final. I embarrassed myself as an Australian not long afterwards by deciding the fly-half was actually kind of cute while interviewing him about that kick that broke a nation's heart.

But among my most formative rugby memories is a sunny day at Ballymore in 1992, when a diminutive Wallaby winger called Paul Carozza crossed the try line just in front of us, followed by an All Black tank named Richard Loe. I'm sure we heard the crack from the hill - we certainly saw the blood and Carozza's nose in a new location on his face.

Like the games at the Colosseum, rugby is all good fun until someone you love is being thrown to the lions.