Scottish Rugby!

In the month of November I went to two rugby matches! The first one was on November 8th. Lisa, Andy and I saw Scotland play the New Zealand All Blacks in Edinburgh. The All Blacks are the best team in the world (and that is no exaggeration)! So, what we actually saw was the Scots have the rear ends handed to them by the Kiwi's!  I think the final score was something like 25 to 6!  

At the end of the month we went to Aberdeen (the original one) to see Scotland play Canada. We were joined by my parents, who were over for my MLitt Graduation (more on that in a later post).  This time we got to see CANADA get there rear ends handed to them by SCOTLAND! The final score was 41-0!  My poor Canadian housemate (Lisa) was disappointed that Canada didn't get a single point, but was happy to get to hear her national anthem played in Scotland. 

And we got snow!  It snowed the day before the match, so when we arrived at the stadium they were shoveling snow off of the pitch!  And it snowed as the game came to a close!

I really enjoy rugby. Anyone who has known me for even five minutes should find this admission to a love of a sport quite shocking.  But its true!  I think it is because the matches only last and hour and a half: two 40 minute halves with a 10 minute break in the middle.  There's none of this "stop the clock every 4 minutes" nonsense like in American football.  There are no time-outs.

And they play without padding or helmets.  And its much more full-contact, no-holds-barred than American football.  They kind of make American footballers look like pansies.  Some guys literally tape their ears back so they don't get ripped off!  And there is a rule about blood on the field.  You aren't allowed to be oozing on the pitch, so guys will run to the sidelines and be patched up... while the game is still going on.  I saw a match on TV once where one of the players started out with a white uniform, but ended with a red shirt...

These guys don't mess about!  I actually saw one of the All Blacks THROW one of the Scottish players off of the pile!  Just picked him up by the collar of his shirt and the seat of his shorts, and threw him 3 feet!  And these aren't little guys we're talking about here!  I would certainly not like to be at the bottom of a scrum!

The other thing I think is awesome is the way they pick up their teammates at the throw in after a ball goes out of bounds.  I think there is a picture in the slide show!  Once again... I want to remind you, these are not little guys!

They say that "Rugby is a hooligans' sport played by gentlemen."  I must agree.  Really big gentlemen...  




PS: I can't figure out how to make the slideshow move any slower! But if you just click on one of the pictures in the show, it should take you to the Picassa Webpage that I created the show on. From there you should be able to look at the pictures at your own pace! AND the pictures show up much bigger! So you can see more details!