Matt Heath: NZ Takes A Proud Package To London

How things have changed between rugby tournaments.

A Rugby World Cup year is a great time to take stock of your life. To think about the things that have changed in the past four years. The people you hang out with, the job you do, the clothes you wear.

Maybe you've added to your family or maybe, like me, you've lost someone you love. One thing is for sure: 2011 was a long time ago and things are different now.

This World Cup year, for example, I find myself sitting inside a giant stylised scrotum in the Great New Zealand Herald Hall. I wasn't doing that in 2011. No one was.

The 2015 Rugby World Cup has already surpassed 2011 in terms of ticket sales, viewers, online interaction and dollars earned. Good on the English.

But for us Kiwis, 2011 was truly special. The best of times. The massive rolling party in that slug by the water, the fan trails and the nationwide anger after the Auckland launch was too successful.

How very New Zealand it was to beat ourselves up over too many people turning up.

Sadly, the tournament is unlikely to be back here for a long time. The numbers just don't add up. Bummer.

Still, it's a World Cup year and I for one am going to enjoy it. Which brings me back to the giant stylised scrotum in the great Herald hall. It's a massive 10m x 6m x 4m and stands as a tribute to Buck Shelford and his infamous fate at the boots of allegedly meth-fuelled Frenchmen in Nantes. That was 1986, the year before the first World Cup. If you want to really see how things have changed, compare the 1987 opening ceremony with the 2015 one. We live in a different world.

But why would anyone build a massive scrotum in the bowels of the NZ Herald's Albert St HQ? I have been asked this question a lot this last week.

The answer is another example of how things have changed. The design is the set of a television show. The Alternative Commentary Collective's Champagne Rugby. But being 2015 this TV show isn't playing on your TV set. That's very 2011. In 2015, making TV shows for actual TVs is a thing of the past.

Four years ago mainstream New Zealand finally discovered the internet meme. When Piri Weepu took on injured Dan Carter's goal- kicking duties in that tense quarter-final match against Argentina, "I've got this" exploded on Social Media.

In 2015 things have ramped up even further. Hanging majestically a little to the left inside our stylised scrotum you'll find a Soc Med Testicle: a hub of rugby-related communications and a futuristic tribute to the past.

In two weeks from now our giant multi-media set will be packed up into crates and flown in a chartered Air New Zealand flight to England.

There it will be set up on Stage 8 of 3 Mills Film Studio in East London, the location of some amazing productions, from 28 Days Later to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and The Mighty Boosh.

The English may be bettering us in terms of RWC financials but they don't have a TV show in a giant scrotum. That's why this one is being flown in from little old New Zealand. Go Kiwi.

Since 2011 New Zealand has enjoyed a solid economic recovery, the All Blacks have gone from strength to strength, and of course we are all quite a bit older. As our lives go by in four-year increments, it's nice to focus on our wins. Both on the field and off.

For me, The Alternative Commentary Collective broadcasting The Champagne Rugby Show from inside a giant stylised scrotum in a London film studio is something the whole nation can be proud of.

Maybe, just maybe, in four years we will reflect back on this little victory and think: how much we have changed.

NZ Herald