The Rugby Outsider

It's been seven years since my last blog post. Blogging may now be out of style, but I don't monetize this and I'm content doing this in my spare time.  How can I explain the absence? Well, as The Who says in it's 1982 album title, It's Hard. Writing about rugby is totally a passion of mine and between life, career and family, I struggle to find time to write. I wish I could do more. But, there are times in life when you have to take advantage of the opportunity in front of you. Back when I last wrote content for my blog, it would have been a dream to have a Professional rugby team in my area. That dream, thanks to NOLA Gold and Major League Rugby , is now a reality. I would be crazy not to take advantage of what I could only have imagined back then.  I'm a Hurricane Katrina survivor, and sparing you the dramatics, I wish I would have written a journal back then. I think it would have been a heck of a read. For any of you out there that have a passio

I'm really trying to understand the sport of rugby by finding equivalents to the North American sports that I watch every day. Now that I have watched something near 30 rugby telecasts, I am still clueless on many aspects of the game but I think I have a grasp on some concepts that I can relate to. Here are a few observations: --The more I watch Crusaders' center Sonny Bill Williams, the more I think LA Lakers great Magic Johnson. Like SBW, Magic Johnson was taller and bulkier than many of the players at his position at the time. Magic also was a creative passer. After watching Williams yesterday against the Stormers, I immediately think finger roll--the arm-extended pass lightly touched off to a team-mate begs comparison to basketball. SBW even threw a behind-the-back pass at one point--the signature move of the NBA point guard. --To counter SBW's creative offloads, one would think watching the NFL would help me understand his effectiveness. I kept thinking as the Sto

Jubilation and despair--the literal peaks and valleys of human emotion--were on display in the Hurricanes 50-47 SupeRugby victory over the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein, South Africa last Saturday. And it took just 90 seconds. Cheetah's scrum half Sarel Pretorious, who played a monster of a game, ventured far into Hurricane territory with less than two minutes left. Without many team mates around him, Pretorious flailed the ball away in a desperate attempt to keep possesion and run out the game clock. However, Pretorius' pass fell plainly in the hands of the desperate Hurricanes, who quickly turned it into a fast-break going the other way. Lock Jeremy Thrush looked Gayle Sayers-like as he outran the exhuasted Cheetahs to the Try Line at the buzzer, sealing the victory for the New Zealand side. Watch the action here: What makes Rugby such a great game is the ability of teams to seize victory from the jaws of defeat in the dying moments. I struggle to find parallels to sports most A

I'm watching the second half of the Sharks-Lions game on TV here in the United States. This marks the first weekend ever that I was able to see some or parts of every game on the SupeRugby calendar for the week. I have the following observations, in no particular order: --The Crusaders have been fantastic against South African sides the Sharks and the Bulls. In fact, they've played so well it seems that the only team capable of beating them are the Crusaders' own replacments. --At some point, SANZAR is going to notice Sonny Bill Williams' penchant for high and dangerous tackles. He did it again in the first half against the Bulls, throwing the high shoulder to a stood-up player. To me, it's similar to the "high-low" tackle in American football. --I don't know if the Reds will win the SupeRugby title, but their performance against the Stormers at Newlands in Cape Town just was their finest moment this season. --The Reds' Quade Cooper had enough h

SANZAR, an acronym for South Africa, New Zealand and Australia rugby, is the governing body for the Tri-Nations and SupeRugby tournaments. To find out what the member nations think of SANZAR, do an experiment. Google: South Africa SANZAR, New Zealand SANZAR and Australia SANZAR. It does not take many headlines to realize that South Africa and SANZAR don't always see eye-to-eye. And, since SANZAR also metes out punishment for player indiscretions, there are always headlines when SANZAR cites South African players and fails to cite others for similar offenses. Witness two cases-in-point. First, from last year's Tri-Nations, a vicious head-butt by Springbok Bakkies Botha on All Black Jimmy Cowan, which Botha received a nine-week ban. Then, take a look at yesterday's Sharks-Crusaders SupeRugby match, with Sonny Bill Williams of the Crusaders giving Ryan Kankowski a flying elbow. What's important is that this contest might as well have been a Springboks-All Blacks game becau

Remember the date: 27 March 2011. I hope all who were watching the Sharks-Crusaders SupeRugby match from Twickenham knew what was happening: a match between the Manchester United and FC Barcelona of the Rugby Union world. It was a date that will live in history as the first SupeRugby game played in the Northern Hemisphere, which saw the Crusaders beat the Sharks 44-28 . The Durban-based Sharks and the Christchurch-based Crusaders came to Twickenham in England to play the game postponed from earlier this season because of the earthquake on South Island that affected Christchurch and the surrounding area. My uninformed thoughts and observations of this historic tilt are thus: Yes, it seems that Sonny Bill Williams is the real deal. If you don't know by now, fellow Americans think the next Jonah Lomu. OK, bad analogy for those of you that don't know Rugby. Think the next A-Rod in baseball, the next Peyton Manning in football or the next Kobe Bryant in basketball. What I liked