Update by Roland

I have never played rugby, except when a game of poker broke down into a scramble after a drunken cheater tried to leave early. But I just now witnessed my first real rugby match. France has a renowned love for rugby and the skills of champions. Tonight they were playing Scotland, an ancient rival.

Not knowing the rules,
this is what it looked like to me:

Seventeen stout players, all wrapped up except for their legs and their heads, run at each other, often forgetting the ball on the ground beneath their feet. “Who’s got the ball?”, they seemed to want to know—and they all seemed to be looking for it. I saw it, on the ground, trapped between their feet—but apparently nobody else did.

The two teams face off, gripping each other, pushing hard with their shoulders, leaning into a human wall that would have provided a great platform for someone to climb up and grab a battlefield view. The ball breaks free, someone spots it, picks it up and starts running with it. Just at the moment when the runner is about to be knocked down, the ball is hefted and tossed diagonally to another player who may or may not have been expecting it.

 

Then a sort of ‘hot potato’ scenario develops, in which none of the players on the same team want to hold onto the ball for long. The ball gets tossed around until one player on the team claims it and remembers which direction they are supposed to be headed.

The Scots form a broad line and once again charge forward, like Brave William Wallace fighting savagely against the occupiers.

Every clash leaves team members disoriented.

They are bulky, stiff and obviously strong. Thick legs, enormous thighs, and a broad bearing defines every player. Muscles ripple when they square off, and I can hear the yelling, the grunting and grimacing, each time a player gets whacked or twisted in the scrum knot. During the scrimmages, the faces of the players become distorted like underwater paintings.

An out of bounds play gives one team the chance to rest. The throw-in is aimed at a pyramid of players, lifted aloft in a slow-motion ladder, the player on top reaching higher until the ball is solidly in hand, frozen for a moment, then descending again into a mess of swirling, sweating bodies.

Eventually the faces of the rugby teams grow darker, flushed with blood or just bloody. Skin is gashed, noses are bleeding, and long scrapes appear on their legs. I can hear the crunch every time a player is crushed between members of the opposing team, sometimes remaining motionless on the grass when the play disperses.

Upon a closer look—it wasn’t actually grass but some kind of astroturf; all the more dangerous and probably causing scuff marks that wouldn’t go away for years, leaving colored tattoos of plastic and rubber embedded in their skin.

Five times, players fell wounded; and five times stretchers carted them from the pitch. What would become of number 10 or that smaller player, number 16?

The grim expressions of their replacements reveal a lust for revenge and victory. But this was just a game.

Yes, my first rugby match was terrifying, and I wasn’t even playing.

The match ended, teams exhausted, and what a thrilling contest it was, a display of strength and loyalty. Ultimately, France beat Scotland, 19 – 0. Tomorrow the newspapers will carry the headline: France Gagne Dans Le Rugby Féminin! This was a game of the European Women’s Rugby Union. The teams were made up of females in their early twenties.

 

Even though I enjoyed it, I promised never to play rugby unarmed. But glued to the action, I soaked it up faster than an underwater sponge. I reveled in the moments of rucking and feeding the scrum after packdown. I admired the up-and-unders of both these teams. The clever tap kicks and the not-so-subtle swing arms gave the game a sort of sophisticated brutality.  When the referees weren’t watching, the spear tackles began—the stiff arm fends should have resulted in loose carry calls. I noticed that the shoulder charges pushed the wings to cover tackle…amazing nobody was booted to the sin bin.

I like rugby, at least womens rugby. And I wouldn’t care if I were the only rook in the room.