The Rugby World Cup continued to thrill and surprise this weekend with Wales bagging an astonishing victory over England at Twickenham. Dreams of a Welsh win were dwindling with 30 minutes to go and a 10 point deficit for Wales, but with a shocking try by scrum-half Gareth Davies and a few skilful kicks by Dan Biggar, Wales stole a victory from the host team.
First-half
Naturally, during what was one of the most exciting games of the world cup so far, fans took to social media to voice their joy, surprise and frustration throughout the game. Here is a more detailed look at the reaction to Saturday’s game on Twitter.
Volume spiked around kick-off at 20:00 as people took to Twitter to express their excitement about the game and show support for their team. The words ‘love’, ‘excited’ and ‘enjoying’ were the most commonly used emotion words in tweets posted around kick-off.
The second volume spike came at 20:32 when England’s Jonny May scored the first try of the game putting England 16-9 up at half-time. ‘Jonny may’, ‘Try for England’ and ‘#carrythemhome’ were the most discussed topics in tweets posted in the moments after the try was scored.
This word cloud shows the trending topics in Twitter discussion around the game throughout the first half.
The most discussed topics were Jonny May’s try, Owen Farrell’s drop kick and the presence of royals Will and Kate.
Second-half
The second-half of the game prompted an even bigger reaction on Twitter as Wales found their momentum and closed the points gap. The volume spikes at 21:44 and 21:48 reflect Dan Biggar’s try and penalty kick for Wales taking them 3 points ahead of England. With two minutes to go the tension was palpable on Twitter as fans from both nations held their breath in unison.
The final whistle saw Wales keep their three point lead and an eruption of tweets immediately followed ranging from devastation to elation. This emotion graph looks at tweets posted in the first few minutes after the game ended and shows the mixture of emotions present in tweets.
This word cloud displays the top trending topics in tweets posted about the game in the moments after the final whistle was blown, largely fueled by jubilant Wales fans.
Twitter allows fans to publicly broadcast their reaction to live sporting events in real time. We now have the ability to connect with hundreds of thousands of different people from nations all over the world to discuss the same live event. Blurrt is able to collect and analyse all this information and feedback in depth insights in real-time.