Learning how to play rugby

Well, we've been up to lots over the past few months, but let's not dwell on the past, shall we :)?

The topic near and dear to me at the moment is my budding career as a rugby star. Well...that may be a bit of an overstatement.

Penny and I signed up to play touch rugby with the Aussie/Kiwi contingent this spring, so I'm learning the ropes...slowly but surely. They started me off throwing the ball around for fun over the Easter weekend and going through some of the basics - "right, yes, no forward passing...got it (wussies)." Then we started the season a few weeks ago and I've been picking it up bit by bit since then...although the first game was total confusion for me.

The biggest challenge for me is dropping some of the habits of playing American football. Not that I was ever a big football player, but apparently I played enough to do some things automatically. Most of which are not allowed in touch rugby.

Now, I've watched enough rugby over the past few years in Londnon to generally know the rules, but there's a big difference between an armchair understanding of the game and knowing what's going on on the field.

So - the first game, I got an understanding of the feel of the game. The second game, I learned that you can't block for your teammates when they have the ball (still having troubles with that one), and that running out of bounds doesn't just stop play and take you to the next down, but it actually results in a turnover (thought I was being clever by trying to gain a few extra feet).

In tonight's game, after thinking I scored my first "try" (touchdown in American terms), I remembered that, unlike American football, you actually have to put the ball down when you cross the goal line. D'oh. Unfortunately I realised this far too late, after I had already gone out of the endzone (thankfully, I resisted the urge to spike the ball). Apparently my teammates were shouting instructions at me - but in my mind I was already gearing up for the glory of the post-score celebration.

Ah well - one more thing to the new experiences list. I started to get a good feel for the game tonight and it flowed much more easily, I even made up for my missed goal with an assist. And hey - we won our first match, so it certainly wasn't all bad.

It's good fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season - might be my kind of game. Although - I still find myself longing for someone to throw me a nice tight spiral ;-). At any rate, you can keep up with the highs and lows of the Southern Comforts on the league website through the season if you're interested.

In other news- you can see some of our pics of our trip to Barcelona a few weeks ago with our friends Shawn & Nikki and our annual Cinco de mayo party; I saw G. Love & Special Sauce in concert last night and it was fantastic; and we're off to go camping in Cornwall this weekend.