My First Rugby Game!

When the national teams from Australia (the Wallabies) and New Zealand (All Blacks) play then it’s anointed the “Rugby Union’s Bledisloe Cup” in honor of Lord Bledisloe the former Governor-General of New Zealand.

I chose this game because Luke Burgess, who I met in my Sydney Fish Market Seafood BBQ Class, plays for the Wallabies. And they’re playing against the All Blacks who are internationally known, in particular for the haka (Māori traditional dance) that the team performs in all international matches immediately prior to the start of the game.

I went to the game with my boss, Peter Witts, and a journalist. It was great to go with Peter because he knows everything about rugby. Peter writes a Rubgy Blog for The Australian which is one of the top national newspapers here. He says he’s most active during the Rugby Super 14 (the way I understand it, it’s like the playoffs to the formation of an “All star” team which is essentially The Wallabies for Australia).

My first impression of rugby is that it's quite action packed and reminded me more like ice hockey in terms of the speed of play and intensity of the players. Unlike American football, the game kept moving - there were no long waits between downs and there was no changing over of defense and offense - the same team played all night. The coach wasn't even allowed on the field, so the team was self-managed (you could see the coaches up in the boxes and once in a while on the big screen you could see their reactions to certain plays).

The most intriguing parts for me were when the players would pile up on top of the player with the ball and there'd be this huge mass of arms and legs and then magically the ball would just pop out, outside this pile (evidently there's a rule that once the person with the ball is knocked down and there's a pile of people on time of him, he has to place the ball on the ground just outside the pile so play can continue). Expecting this, his team mates are all standing around outside the pile waiting for the ball to appear, when they see it they grab it and start running off. The funny thing is that while the play of ball moves down the field it sometimes take a while for the pile of players to realize it.

And there is strong aggression in these matches - I saw one guy pull back and punch his opponent three times when they were all piled on top of each other. And it wasn't subtle like when a basketball player tries to use his body to hide the fact that he's giving his opponent a hard jab - you actually saw this guy pummel his opponent three times from the top of the pile - it was quite blatant.

And one of the last clips you'll see is when a ball is thrown back it from off-sides you'll see the teams lined up like a start of play in American football. Then more like the cheerleaders you see on the sidelines of American football, rugby players lift their team mates up on their shoulders so they can attempt to catch the ball thrown in to play.

It was a close game, but in the end the All Blacks won 19-18. I really wanted the Wallabies to win, but considering the fact that the very next day I was flying from Sydney to New Zealand - it certainly made for a very "happy" bunch of New Zealand passengers on their way home.