Rugby

So we're in this pub in Dublin for dinner, and the Six Nations Rugby Championship is on.  I'm vaguely familiar with the concept of it because it comes on BBC America every year, but I've really not paid that much attention to it.  Mostly, I've always associated rugby with two things: this t-shirt guys at State used to wear that said "Donate Blood.  Play Rugby" which amused me, and my absolutely drop-dead-gorgeous, sweet-as-pie neighbor from the Cotton District who helped coach football at MSU and played rugby for "fun."  He could also sort of lift large pieces of furniture with one hand...

I'm sorry.  I think I got distracted.  What was I saying?

Oh yeah.  Rugby.  Dublin.

We watched the game while we ate, but we didn't get to see it all. I realized pretty quickly that the game was more interesting than I had thought.  Today I watched the championship game between England and Ireland from the comfort of my own couch, and I confirmed that I really might be into this game for several reasons.

First and foremost, it always moves.  One of the dullest things about American Football is all the waiting and setting up of plays.  There are flashes of brilliant and glorious motion, but there is a tremendous amount of everybody just standing around, too.  Rugby is 80 minutes of almost continuous motion.  The ball touched the ground?  Big woo.  Bunch of big guys jump another guy?  Yay.  Keep going.  There are certain things that are bad sportsmanship that stop the game, but other than that, pick up the damn ball and keep playing.  What kind of sissy are you that you need to stop every five seconds?  Love it.  Love it.

Second, the kicking game is strategic.  Everybody is a kicker, and kicking is not just a way to score.  It's a defensive weapon, too.  It's a way to screw the other team.  To a certain degree, this is true in American football, too.  A good kicker can pin the other team far back in their own territory, and then your defensive line can annihilate them, but it's much more than that in rugby because kicking doesn't happen only as a beginning or last-ditch option.  It can happen at any time.  That makes it more important to be good at it, precise and accurate at where you send the ball when you do it.  Foot chess.  Heh.

Then there's the scrum.  I don't even know where to start with this.  The psychology of this and the brute force.  Let's just get everybody in a big wedge and run into each other.  Oh.  And let's throw a ball in the middle.  Yeah.  It reminds me a little of sumo, only with a LOT of guys.  There's that same sort of mental thing going on before they smash into each other and start shoving.  It's really cool.

I dig the referee (that may not be the right term for him; I'm still learning terms and rules and whatnot), too.  He's only one guy out there running around yelling at them and fussing at them like somebody's mom.  He was cracking me up.  I actually saw one screw up today and ADMIT IT.  You never see that in other sports.  They're always like gods, pissy and untouchable.  Control of the behavior (adherence to the rules) was of paramount concern, and what he spent most of his time talking to them about.  And when he fussed at them, they pulled their act together.  I kept thinking about the difference between American football players with their endless attitudes and that.  It was not a balance that came out very positively for football, if you want to know the truth.  I mean, I know there was probably all manner of nasty crap going on out there, and egos that had their own gravitational pull, but you just didn't get that impression as they played.  It was sort of nice.

Then there were the players themselves.  They were...lovely.  Yeah.  Built just a little heavier than soccer players but mostly lighter than American football players, and I would have to say possibly (God forgive me) smarter because of all the decisions going on and the tactical analysis needed to succeed in a constantly shifting game of that type.  Yeah.  I'd gladly have picked one of those up on my trip, but oddly, they didn't have them in the shops.  Go figure.

Well, it gives me something else to pursue, anyway.  (The sport.  Not the players.  They run too fast.)  I need to learn more about the rules.  I guess that's what God made Google for, though right?