Diary About Nothing Much 9 - the RWC Edition

I apologise in advance if this diary descends into stream-of-consciousness drivel. I'd like to say it was for narrative effect, whereas I really just ran out of time and inclination.

I was casting around for ideas for the next diary when it occurred to me that the Rugby World Cup starts on the 7th of September, and that rugby was a serious omission of mine in this post about stupid Enzed sports.

I also realised that my American readers may not know what the Rugby World Cup is. This is understandable because, as with most internationally known pursuits, it doesn't exist within the Continental 48 until Hollywood makes a movie about it. So, even though I am the least qualified person to do this, it behooves me to expound just a little on this noble and ancient game.

Firstly however, a little clarification on the two relevant terms here:

Rugby – is not American Football: the players don’t dress up in helmets and four tonnes of padding, they actually play a full eighty minutes, play can actually last longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch and, no matter how happy they may be, nobody ever ever does a silly little dance after scoring a try.
World Cup (or World Series, or World Championship, or World whatever) – a tournament in which at least one of the competing teams ought to have come from somewhere else in the world. Hint: if nobody passed through passport control to get there, it isn’t a world anything.

At this point I must add a disclaimer. I admit to not being an amazingly huge fan of rugby. This probably stems from an incident from my school days when I ended up concussed and with a mouthful of turf, after being tackled off the ball by a six-foot tall thirteen-year-old aspiring psychopath during a lunchtime game. They say it’s boyhood things like that that form the man, and in this case the man it formed became a soccer player. In any case the veracity of this post, and the bias of the poster, could arguably be called into question. Those know my writing will not be surprised in the least.

There are two major codes of rugby: Union and League. It is important that you do not get these confused. Insulting Union in a pub full of Union fans is likely to get you punched in the mouth, whereas insulting League in a pub full of League fans is likely to get you glassed.

• Get the ball.
• Run headlong into the opposing team.
• Get tackled.
• Roll the ball behind you to the next player.
• Repeat five times, then kick the ball.

• Get the ball.
• Run headlong into the opposing team.
• Get tackled.
• Take offence at the tackler.
• Punch him in the head and start an all-out brawl.
• Repeat five times, then kick the ball or a member of the opposing team.
  
• During the after-match interview, mouth off about the ref, the other players, the fans and/or the commentators. Make sure everybody knows just how bloody amazing you are and how everybody else is absolute sh*t.

And that’s about as much interest as I have in League. I value my IQ points too much to waste them here.

The rules for Union on the other hand are a little more… baroque, and try as I might I’ve never properly understood them. My Darling Beloved, whose appreciation for the game rarely extends beyond Dan Carters’ underwear ads, knows more than I do. People who have tried to explain them to me during a game have met with no success, as they always ends up sounding something like this:

“Ok so at kickoff the ball must travel at least ten metres because if it doesn’t the other team gets to choose whether they want a scrum or lineout back on the halfway line but if the kickoff is good then anyone can try to catch the ball and from there run or pass or kick the ball towards the tryline but if the ball is passed it cannot be - what? offside, ref! - passed forward because a forward pass is illegal and the other team will get a penalty and can take another scrum and if that scrum fails then the team in possession - that was NEVER forward, you silly bastard - can kick for touch or tap and run but in any case if a player has the ball he can be tackled to the ground and if he is he must release the ball because if he doesn’t the other team will get a penalty but if he does then anybody who is still on their feet can try to get the ball so it then becomes a ruck but if a ruck fails then there can be yet another bleedin’ scrum and we know how they end up but if the player with the ball is still on his feet then - just PASS it, you mongrel - it becomes a maul but if the maul goes to ground then there can be you guessed it yet another scrum and don’t forget that at any time if the ball goes out then the other team gets to feed a lineout where everybody lines up and tries to get the ball when it is thrown back in and in any case if somebody actually makes through all the rucks and tackles and mauls and scrums and lineouts to the other team’s goal area and they manage to place the ball on the ground then that is a try and it is worth five points and it can be converted by a place kick for another two points or if a penalty is kicked that’s worth three points but - ref - if the ball is loose - ref! - and a player - REF! - grounds it - REF! where the hell ARE ya! - in their own goal area then everybody goes back five metres from the try line and they take yet another godforsaken freakin' pointless bloody scrum - Geez Ref! Put that friggin' whistle away for five minutes, will ya!”

Excuse me while I try to unclog that last paragraph from my spellchecker.

Another disclaimer: Yes, I know there are other codes. I just don’t care. Sevens is what you get when you field a half-team of methamphetamine addicts, and as for Aussie Rules... are you kidding me? They can’t even put their goalposts together the right way.

In any case, this World Cup is going to be held in France which makes me like it even more. It may surprise the reader that in addition to garlic nibbling and chopping the legs off frogs, France is quite a proud rugby nation, if not always a successful one, and these days they almost never try to surrender when the All Blacks perform a Haka. And holding it in France is good news for us in Enzed, as it means we will have an excuse for walking into the office two hours late, cranky and bleary eyed the day after a match - though for some of us this is pretty normal behaviour anyway - and all the hungover Kiwis yobbos still stuck in Valencian jails after we wuz robbed of the America’s Cup can hitchhike north and show the French what real hooliganism looks like. We still haven't forgotten the last time the French paid a visit to our fair shores. I'm sure they won't forget us in a hurry, either.

Yep, I’m looking forward to the RWC. Even if I don't understand a damn thing about what's happening on the field I will, in true Enzed tradition, be a Rugby guru and an impossible bore by the time we win the bloody thing.

And we will.