1 post tagged “rugby is batshit insane”
Rugby is a rather fascinating game.
I’ve got two friends who play it and have been to half a dozen games, but still do not understand how most of it works. Unlike its American cousin, football, there are no football announcers explaining the rules to me. Also unlike American Football, no helmets or padding is worn. When going to a rugby game, you’ll usually see lots of this:
And some of this:
And this, too:
The names of things in Rugby would most likely make most Americans giggle. There are players called the Hooker, the flanker, and the scrum half. There are things called a “grubber kick,” a “line-out,” a “maul,” a “plunt kick,” and a “ruck.” What any of these things mean, I don’t know. But they make me giggle.
Rugby’s rules are crazy. It's almost like a five-year-old made them up. Or a drunk person. The game involves an oval ball, hands, feet, 15 players, and 7 substitutes. The ball can only be passed from behind, although you may kick it forward. Points are scored by getting a “Try” (equivalent of a and American touchdown), and various other ways, most of which I don’t understand. There’s something called “the scrummage” in which players stand together with their arms linked (think Red Rover, Red Rover), and the “hooker” tries to kick the ball behind him to his team. Why? I don’t know. It looks like a giant wrestling orgy.
Another very interesting rule about Rugby is the fact that the only time the ball is not in play is when there has been a penalty or it goes out of bounds. There aren’t “time outs” in Rugby. In fact, someone could be killed in Rugby, and the ball would still be in play. They’d just have to play around him. Or trample over him.
Watching Rugby must be like what the Romans felt watching Christians be fed to the lions. It’s insane. I’ve seen people get kicked in the head, kneed in the groin, and elbowed in the face. But they still keep going. It’s almost Medieval, what with its crazy rules and genuine disregard for bodily harm. From what I’ve experienced most of the members of the teams don’t really even know one another’s names. They’re generally just yelling at on another, “get the ball, ya bastards!” while they clash into the other team in a explosion of testosterone and sweat.
But despite all this, I think the most interesting part of Rugby is the members of the audience. They’re often found yelling obscenities at the field, sometimes at their own team. This especially true of Rugby wives. One game I went to starred an angry Rugby wife screaming (in an Irish accent, even though she’s not Irish) “Ah, ya mother fucker ref!” It is my hope that one day, I, too, can be an angry, violent Rugby wife; yelling curse words at the field but not really knowing why.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
-K.
