The Manliest Sport Of All

I have spent a good portion of this week watching rugby. This is because, for my television production class, I am putting together a piece on the Long Island Rugby Club. So, I spent Saturday at a game, Tuesday night at a practice and then yesterday I edited for hours.
I have always been intrigued by rugby and this project has enlightened me on what rugby is really all about. First of all the rules are simpler than I was expecting. It is pretty much nonstop play for 80 minutes. There is a very short break half way through. When this break happened at the game I was at a wife or girlfriend of one of the players brought out a big bowl of orange slices for the boys to eat for the few minutes. The most well known rule of rugby is that there is no forward passing only lateral and backward passing is acceptable. The ball can also be kicked at anytime in the game. A guy can only be tackled if he has possession of the ball. There are no substitutions and if you go out of the game for any reason you cannot come back in.
When the ball goes out of bounds there are a couple of ways to get it back into play. The first is called a lift; this is when one to three players are literally lifted up by their teammates to catch the ball as it comes in bounds. The second way is called a scrum, this is when each team links arms to form this giant huddle and the ball is placed in the middle. It is kicked around in the middle until it manages to get out of the huddle and into the hands of player that was not in the huddle. Both of these moves are very interesting to watch.
One of the funnier things I observed during the game is that the players consider water the magical cure. Anytime a guy went down a bottle of water was run out to him and after a few sips he got up and was ready to play again. Someone nailed the ref at one point in the knee and he went down hugging his knee to his chest. He was down for a while and I thought he was going to have to stop calling the game but some water was brought out to him and like magic he got up and refereed the rest of the game.
Guys of all shapes and sizes play this game and as one of the players in my piece said, “We are not getting paid to play we do it for the love of the game.” In most of the player’s interviews they said they liked the physicality of the game but also the brotherhood that is created on a team.
The Long Island Rugby Team is ranked in the top nationally and they play internationally every year. I would recommend to anyone to go see this team play or any team for that matter because it is an exciting game to watch.