All things Rugby, including Rugby at Rugby

During the last month, the television has been prominently featuring rugby games from both "Rugby League" and "Rugy Union", the two big international rugby leagues. Ethan, the chief household rugby enthusiast, has been absolutely lapping up the coverage, and I've actually enjoyed watching some of it as well. I am finally getting a little closer to understanding the game, even though I still have no idea what the penalty is when the ref blows his whistle.

The big news in rugby this year has been the meteoric ascent (or more accurately re-ascent) of a major rugby power, New Zealand. The New Zealanders call their Union team the "All Blacks", and they are lot of fun to watch. The very start of a New Zealand match is always worth catching, since when the teams line up on the field, the All Blacks do a traditional Maori dance a ("haka") prior to the start of the game. The haka includes chanting in Maori and various hand & body movements (all the players together); it is designed basically to intimidate the heck out of the opposing team. If you read the translation of the Maori words that they are chanting during the haka, they are not in fact all that bloodthirsty, but if you had to guess the meaning while watching it for the first time, you would probably come up with "We are going to skin you alive, cook and eat you for dinner, then burn your bones", or something like that. YouTube is littered with haka videos; here is one.

Unlike some of the other rugby teams, whose style is very heavy on moving the ball through kicking or by "grinding" it out in the scrum, the All Blacks instead rely on their running game and their ball handling, which is amazingly good. New Zealand also stands out in that they are absolutely ruthless about exploiting mistakes made by the other team-- if the jugular is exposed, they go for it with teeth bared. The pattern for most of the matches that I have seen is that the first half is fairly even, and then after some crucial mistake of one sort or another, New Zealand kicks into high gear and absolutely stomps on the other team for the remaining 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, on the more local rugby scene: this past weekend the St Faiths side participated in a "7's" tournament at none other than the original Rugby School, located in (of cousre) the town of Rugby. Rugby is about 70 miles from Cambridge, so it's not too terribly far to drive. Instead of the usual format for the matches (12 on a side, 20 minutes per half) this tournament featured 7 players on a side, with 7 minute halves (very short indeed), but with the same size pitch as usual. Hence: lots of running, with a heavy emphasis on passing and possession (as opposed to kicking). Small scrums, only three players. It was interesting to watch but probably not the happiest match for the St Faiths side, partly due to the weather (it was *really* cold) and partly due to the fact that the other teams participating in the tournament were all rugby powerhouses, so we didn't make much headway. I overheard one of the coaches saying that one of the kids on the opposing team had run a 13.5 second 100 meters, which is mighty fast indeed. On the bright side, Ethan scored his first "try" in a real (non-practice) match, so he got considerably satisfaction from that.