A Final Thought: Rugby, Y’all
By Mitch Allen
Last Sunday, my wife hosted her book club at our house. It’s a group of six smart and successful women who stick to nonfiction, usually books about personal development and spiritual growth. I don’t know what they do because I make myself scarce, but after book club my wife is always calm and centered.
On this Sunday, I went in search of a bar and a football game. I recalled seeing a sign for a new restaurant in West Akron, a tiny place on the side of small shopping center, invisible from the street. The sign read, “Floods Urban Seafood Lounge.” That intrigued me because I’m from Alabama and Georgia, and I love seafood. That, and “Urban” often means “Black,” and Black often means good Southern-style cooking.
I was right. I’m talking shrimp and grits, fried catfish, greens, salmon croquettes, and fried tomatoes. It was heaven.
“Those greens on y’all’s menu turnips or collards?” I asked.
“Collards,” replied Taylor, the gregarious bartender who had hollered, “Welcome to Floods!” when I walked in the door.
At restaurants I typically go to, questions about greens center around romaine, iceberg, arugula, or spring mix. I should add that Floods also features lobster, red snapper, perch, and lamb chops, along with burgers, salads, flatbreads, and a lot more. However, the purpose of this column is not to discuss the restaurant (I hope to do that in a future story). Instead, it’s to talk about what was on three of its big-screen TVs.
The Rugby World Cup.
I had seen flashes of rugby games in my life while scrolling television channels, but never watched for more than 15 seconds. This time, enjoying fried catfish nuggets and a bourbon and Coke, I watched for an hour.
I once went alone to a University of Georgia football game and ended up sitting next to a new student from Nigeria. For the entire game he kept asking me questions like, “What is happening now? Why is everyone shouting? Who are the gentlemen in the striped shirts?”
Watching rugby, I felt like that guy. I understood nothing. Of course, a lack of understanding has never stopped me from expressing an opinion, so why start now?
Rugby is a lot like American football in that it’s played on a field with two goal posts and two end zones. As far as I could tell, the purpose, as with football, is to get the oblong ball in your opponent’s end zone.
The big difference is the utter chaos.
Like soccer, play never seems to stop. There is no huddle, no downs, and only an occasional line of scrimmage for reasons I could not determine. Most of the time players are running with the ball, tossing it to fellow players, and tackling each other.
Once a tackle is made, everyone jumps on the man with the ball and a large pile of bodies forms. Soon the ball comes squirting out the back of the pile and someone grabs it. I believe this to be the rugby equivalent of a snap from center because it happens a lot.
The player who picks up the ball from the ground starts running, usually an end around on account of the pile of bodies up the middle. He can run, toss the ball to a fellow player, or, uh, suddenly punt it away?
The fact that a ballplayer has so many options explains why rugby players all look alike. In American football, a player’s specialty can be identified by body type. Wide receivers are tall and lanky; running backs are chiseled and have a low center of gravity; linemen are slow and huge. If you took all these characteristics and averaged them into a single player, you’d have a tight end. Big, strong, and fast. And unlike defensive backs, tight ends can actually catch a football.
This is what all rugby players look like. Watching them walk onto the field, you’d think they were a bunch of dudes at the end of the third shift on a Louisiana oil rig.
Rugby players have to be all-purpose players like tight ends because they never know what they’re going to have to do—run, block, toss, punt, or even kick a field goal.
At one point, a referee presented a player with a red card. Based on everyone’s reaction, this must be really bad.
Occasionally, when the ball had to be returned to the field of play, each team would line up with one player kneeling in front of another player with his face in his crotch. I didn’t understand this at all. Then it became clear: As the ball was thrown into play, the kneeling player lifted the standing player so he could attempt to grab the ball from the air, like a male cheerleader throwing a female cheerleader skyward. Let me tell you, it takes a big dude to throw a big dude in the air.
Finally, my fried catfish was gone (and so was the bourbon), so I went home. As expected, my wife was calm and centered.
I was a nervous and confused.