Rugby Practice

Alas, I have finally had my first practice of rugby (footy). We met at 2:00 in the afternoon, heat of the day, at the cricket oval. We started with a lap around the field, some warm-ups and stretches, the usual. There were a number of drills we did, but here were my two favorite.

1. We lined up at four points of a large square. If you can imagine it, we were supposed to run diagonally across the square and in the middle, flick the ball to the mate running towards the corner you had just come from. While this was happening, the other two corners diagonal to each other were doing the same thing. As you might have expected this created quite the traffic jam and for each error we made, we had to do a certain number of push-ups and crunches. Good fun.

2. Wrestling. You had to pair up and get on your knees facing one another, about a half a meter apart. The object was to get your partner on their back as many times in thirty seconds. Who ever lost had to do push-ups and crunches. You had to stay on your knees the entire time and use leverage. I paired up with Sean who is a 6'7'' lanky tank. We drew even at 2-2 and then he just won the decider match. Curses; I was so close but still proud of myself.

Okay, so after all of these drills we played touch footy. I was way not sure of what was happening. Imagine yourself in the states and, having never played American Football, walking into a backyard game and be like "can I play?" That's what I felt like: out of place and confused. I held my own. Funny story. We were doing our thing as a team, passing, attacking, and running. I ended up with the ball and escaped a touch and everybody sort of stopped. I was like "what happened, what are we doing now? Is it your ball?" Then someone said "try" and I was like "okay?" The kid next to him put his hands up above his head and was like "touchdown."...embarrassing. Everyone got a good laugh out of it though, including the coach. When they score they call it a "tri," hence the confusion. Oh well. I am actually going to head off to water polo practice, St. Paul, not club. I am going to be a very, very sore boy in the morning. Actually, let's be honest, I am going to be a sore boy until Thursday.