Rugby

Ethan has taken to rugby in a big way this fall, and the St Faiths rugby team has definitely taken to him as well. In spite of his relative inexperience (e.g. never played a game before this September), he seems to have figured out how to operate on the rugby field and make his way in the game. Here is a shot of Ethan's team (most of them at least) with their coach, Mr Mageean.


As a parent watching the games, I have to say that it is an emotional roller coaster. On the one hand I am very proud of Ethan and I love to watch him out on the field playing. On the other hand, rugby is a rough game, no two ways about it. I cringe every time I see him get tackled or wind up on the bottom of the scrum. It also doesn't help much that if it were me out there, I would not last 10 minutes without having to be led off the field with some sort of broken bone or strained muscle.

There are of course rules designed to limit the amount of contact for this age group. For example, the runners are supposed to avoid "fending off" with one hand when they run: you are supposed to hold onto the ball with two hands (in theory) which in turn leads you to be a little more conservative about making contact (e.g. when you see yourself about to be tackled, you can turn your back).

There is a huge team element in rugby, at least as much as there is in soccer if not more (which I like). When you get tackled, you try to hand off to another of your teammates, and much of the strategy and field positioning play is design to enable this sort of transfer.

Here is a picture of Ethan setting up for the scrum. For a while it seemed that his coaches were moving him from position to position every day (at one point he was tight head prop, at one point he was playing left wing, etc) but at this point he seems to be consistently in the back part of the scrum, typically "lock" (second row).



This next sequence of photos gives you a sense for the flow of the game. In the first shot, Ethan's teammate is being tackled, so he passes it laterally to Ethan. Ethan grabs the ball, charges forward, then gets tackled by the other team. And so it goes...





The strategic part of rugby is interesting, particularly kicking. In American football, virtually all of the kicking plays (punt, field goal) are set pieces, elaborately planned and rehearsed ahead of time and often with a specialized/dedicated kicking crew. In rugby, if you have the ball and you suddenly decide that you don't like you or your team's field position, you can haul off and kick it up field more or less at any point. Picture to illustrate:



There are occasional breakaways, but it doesn't seem to happen that often. In one of the most recent St Faiths games, the other team had one guy who was especially speedy and was able to break away. This next shot shows Ethan trying (unsuccessfully) to chase down this player after he broke away on the sideline. [Note of parental pride: Ethan was the only kid on the team who got close enough to even get a shot at tackling this speed demon].