Super Rugby vs. American football

Oh hey!

Last night I watched some Super 14 rugby with some Irish guys who are in living in my dorm at the hostel at the moment. The two teams that were playing were the NSW Waratahs vs. the Hurricanes in Sydney. There was also a cricket game on the TV beside this rugby game. Here in Australia, the three biggest sports are cricket, rugby, and soccer. Cricket is so big that when I was playing Hold 'Em at the casino, my entire table stopped to look at a cricket game on TV at various points in the game, including the dealer.

By the way, the dealers in Australia are much more friendly than back home in Niagara Falls. After playing here two nights in a row for 4 or 5 hours both nights, I was quite chummy with a couple of them. (eg. "Why do you keep giving me crap hands Jamie? Why are you so mean to me? What have you got against Canadians anyway?")

Back to the matter at hand. In the interest of diplomacy, I am going to say that I had absolutely zero interest in the cricket game because I don't understand it well enough. I am sure that if I understood the intricacies of this gentlemanly sport, I would surely appreciate it much more.

Now if I may take off my diplomatic hat, let me just say that cricket is the worst sport in the world and I cannot fathom how people have so much vested interest in a bunch of people standing around for up to 5 days at a time. I couldn't watch it for more than 20 seconds at a time, and when I did, two players were either smiling at each other, or a bowler was running approximately 4 kilometres before releasing a ball.

One great thing about reading about the sports in the newspapers is that you will find it quite comforting to know that athletes in other sports on other continents give the same pre-fabricated, cookie-cutter answers to reporters' queries.

Reporter: How do you feel the addition of new young talent will help the team this year?
Veteran player's response: Oh I think they will help tremendously. they haven't been around long enough to be afraid of making mistakes. I just hope that I can show them a couple things along the way about leadership. But I'm very excited about the new kids we got coming in this season.

You can also regularly read about athletes involved in barfights, drug charges, weapons charges, and other nefarious activities that you thought could only be done by the spoiled North American athlete.

Back to rugby. If you guys ever have the chance to watch Super Rugby, do it. These guys absolutely terrify me. They are all so huge, but they are also built for speed. And when they pick up the ball and start running with it, they all have the exact same look on their face: the look of William Wallace. the look says two things at once. On the surface, it says, "I am running as hard as I can at you and I am going to try to rip a hole through your chest in the process." Underneath the tough exterior, a tiny little glimmer in their eye says, "I could die in the next 5 seconds." But even that is terrifying because there is another little glimmer in their eye that says, "And I am totally fine with that."

Honestly, i think I like it better than the NFL - and I love the NFL. But the little things that have bothered me about American football are all corrected in Super Rugby. For one, there are hardly any breaks in the action. These guys just give 'er for 80 minutes. Also, when these guys absolutely level somebody -I am talking like shoulder to the chest while possibly tearing off a piece of their lip while dragging them to the ground - they get up and walk away as if nothing happened. Both the guy who got leveled and the guy who did the leveling. This seemed so unconscionable to me when I first observed it. How can someone hit another person that hard and not be so jacked on adrenaline that they dance around and scream? They restrain themselves because they have respect for the game and their opponent. And it is a welcome reprieve from the overblown histrionics of Ray Lewis et al when they merely trip a player by the shoelaces.

The fact that these guys don't wear equipment blows my mind. It blows my mind. If I played in one of these games, I would - without a doubt - die. I would be struck in the head and die. Even if I was still alive after the blow, there is no doubt in my mind that my body would shut down to avoid suffering another blow like the one it had just received. For this reason, all of the men I watched playing rugby were not merely men; they were demigods in my eyes.

I can't wait to watch another match and actually learn all the rules and nuances of the game. I might as well because it's one of the only things they show on the television at bars and restaurants. While I am here, I should make an effort to totally immerse myself in the culture. If it isn't rugby on the TV, it is soccer or cricket. And Lord knows I won't watch that crap!

Til next time,

Don Jam

(By the way, I have not shaven in about a month. I am trying to grow a kick-ass beard. It is a disgusting sham of a beard and I believe it even just stopped growing. It has reached its peak. It is such a sad excuse for a beard that I think even the aforementioned Asians laugh at its feebleness.)

(By another way, I still do not have my own house so I had to come to the state library to use a computer. I got here at 9:45 and it didn't open til 10. I waited outside for 15 minutes with 20 other people until the librarian let us in. Let's hope that is the last time I ever wait outside of a library in anticipation like it is a friggin concert. What a loser.)