Just a note on background information

As I work through this blog, there are many things to understand about the game of rugby. For my own benefit, and yours as well I hope, I want to go through the types of rugby, the differences between them, and the major countries and competitions in the sport.

I will give what I believe to be credible links, and you can decide what to think. Sound OK?

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RO Commentary: Thoughts on Sharks-Crusaders Rugby game

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...

Seven Year Hiatus

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...

Invictus a movie worth watching

Go out and rent Invictus , the movie about the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Starring Matt Damon as Springbok Francois Pienaar and Morgan Freeman as then-President Nelson Mandela. It is an inspirational movie along the lines of what Miracle did to magnify the accomplishments of the US Olympic Ice Hockey team in 1980. However, as Pienaar points out in this Times UK article , the Springbok team portrayed in the movie was quite different than in real life. That South African side was very capable of winning a World Cup, and though a surprise, it was not as earth shattering as the US hockey team gold medal in Lake Placid. However, politically, the Springbok victory was enormous for the emerging nation. Clint Eastwood's film does an outstanding job of highlighting Mandela's 27-year imprisonment on Robben Island, and Freeman, who always seems to play the wise man in a room of fools, expertly charts the course of unity by testing his relationship with his cabinet and ...

The Rugby Outsider

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