The Rugby Outsider

A Muppet Movie reference in a rugby blog? Yes a Muppet Movie reference in a rugby blog. Sung by Dave Goelz as Gonzo The Great from the 1979 movie.   Follow along, you'll see where it's going. As a sport, Rugby has a welcoming culture.  Players, coaches, administrators, owners, family, friends and fans are the lifeblood of rugby.  New to the sport?  No problem!  Welcome, join us and  learn about the original oval-shaped football game.  There are definite similarities--a good many differences too--but if you have watched American football, you do have the basics to understand rugby. Offload, conversions, penalty goals, tries--these are a few terms that if you say Option play, extra-point, field goal and touchdown, a football fan will instantly know what that means.  It's a start, and football fans definitely have the basics even though it is a completely different game. This looks familiar, vaguely familiar Almost unreal yet, it's too ...

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...

I have no real knowledge of rugby and the organization that runs the sport here in the United States, USA Rugby. I read here from gainline.us and here from Universal Sports' "The Scrum" Blog by Buzz McClain about some dissatisfaction with USA Rugby President and CEO Nigel Melville and Board Chairman Kevin Roberts . I'll let you read and come to your own conclusions, but here my own uninformed talking points: I don't care if USA XV's coach Coach Eddie O'Sullivan, Melville and Roberts aren't American. That never has been a sufficient criteria for a coach or an administrator of any sport in the United States. Having well qualified individuals such as these can only help, not hurt American Rugby. I think we need their knowledge and expertise having coached or administered the game of rugby at the highest levels in the rugby-playing world. If the articles are true as written, specifically that the Congress that elects the USA Rugby CEO and the Board and...

Rugby's newest team in the SuperRugby tournament in 2011 are the Rebels , representing the Australian state of Victoria, and more specifically, the city of Melbourne. The three nations making up SupeRugby's 15 teams (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia) now have five teams each in the competition. Australia's Rugby Union teams in the SupeRugby competition are in a different position than their counterparts in South Africa and New Zealand. Australia does not have a domestic professional championship like South Africa's Currie Cup and New Zealand's ITM Cup . The alternate code of Rugby League is the more popular version of Rugby in Oz. The Rebels are led by former Wallaby captain Sterling Mortlock . And, judging by their first result, a 43-0 loss to the Waratahs , it may be a long SupeRugby season for the newbies from Melbourne. The coach of the Rebels is Rod Macqueen , a former Wallaby coach who led Australia to the Rugby World Cup title in 1999.

Direc TV has stepped it up here in the United States and is offering SupeRugby games for free for current subscribers and starting in February. The games continue today on channel 490. The satellite provider also has coverage of the 6 Nations Tournament on BBC America (Channel 264). Rugby needs television coverage if the USA is to see what a great game it is. I would never be able to see the matches on my local cable provider.

South Africa's SuperSport describes the changes in the Super 15 Tournament which changes its name to SupeRugby this season. With one more team, and an empahsis on domestic matches , look for some intersting developments in the Rugby Union World's premiere club competition.

Just one look is all it took. I had never watched a Rugby Sevens game until today's NBC Broadcast of the HSBC Las Vegas Sevens Tournament . The Sevens game will likely be the preferred method of bringing Rugby to the American masses, and I'll tell you why: Sevens is played wide-open as opposed to the many pitched defensive battles that characterize the XV Union code. With the emphasis on speed and passing without prolonged stoppages for rucks and mauls, Sevens is much easier to follow on TV for novices like myself. With Rugby Sevens coming to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and the USA the "defending" Olympic Champion from back in 1924, Sevens will be on TV in 2016. Two seven minute halves mean that several games can be condensed into hour or two hour blocs of broadcast time. It's an hour into NBC's coverage as I write, and this will be the third game I will have watched. Players are lean and quick--almost like a team of XV backs, and positions 1-8 are...

Hello, Rugby readers, With 2011 being a World Cup year , it's time to start publishing again. The original post of this blog, with my assertion that Americans can take to Rugby like we did with soccer back in the 1970's. November, Planet Rugby published this article in which IRB Chief Mike Miller says that the question is "when and not if" the United States will one day host a Rugby World Cup. The article goes on to talk about Rugby Sevens being added to the Olympic games in Rio de Janiero in 2016 as a crucial stepping stone to re-establishing the game in the US. Additionally, should the US qualify in men's sevens, they would go to the Olympics as the defending champion (even though it was 1924 and the XV version). More to come.

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 Tri-Nations series really is the best time of year for rugby fans. Since 1996, the rugby-playing nations of South Africa , New Zealand and Australia have played against each other in what I believe is not only the premiere rugby tournament in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the finest annual rugby tournament in the world. It may become a truly "Southern Hemisphere" tournament as Argentina has been conditionally invited to join in 2012. Club rugby, like club football (soccer) and other team sports are thing. An annual tournament involving national team draws much bigger crowds and has much more interest. The three Southern Hemisphere nations are rugby hotbeds. Of six Rugby World Cups , five have been won by Tri-Nations national teams. New Zealand is the clear leader with nine victories, South Africa has three and Australia two. The fierce competition, and the fact that rugby enjoys a substantial following in those countries, make these three teams among the best in t...

A brief introduction to rugby, brought to you, I believe, by EA Sports Rugby 05.

Neil Jenkins of Wales, one of the best kickers in the history of the game.

One of the first things to know about the sport of rugby in the world is that there are several different types: Rugby Union vs. Rugby League and Rugby XV's (15 players a side) vs. Rugby Sevens (7 a side). We'll deal with Sevens vs. 15's later. For now, let's talk about Rugby Union and League. Wikipedia does have a good comprehensive overview of the differences between Union and League. Stuart Duncan of suite101.com has some good stories and history of the game. His description of the difference in the two codes is a must-read. For fans of either sport, mistakenly referring to one as the other is a definite no-no. It might even lead to an argument. Best to know which one you're talking about before you speak. The governing body for Rugby Union is the International Rugby Board (IRB) and it is based out of Dublin, Ireland. For Rugby League, the Rugby League International Federation is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Again, read the 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?

Rugby is not even a blip on the radar screen as a sport in the USA. That's not to say that people here aren't trying to introduce the sport to the masses--and have been playing it for quite some time. We have a domestic rugby league, the Rugby Super League , and College Rugby , and the sport is played in probably thousands of small parks across the nation, including this one less than a mile from my house (as the crow flies.) Where does that leave us? Well, seemingly with a long way to go towards respectability for us fans of the sport. I have to admit that I have never played or watched a rugby game in person. I have seen a few books, read a few articles, and generally keep up with the game through the Internet and, as I have found out, through iPhone apps . OK, I am too cheap to buy the "official" USA app--I have a bunch of freebies. But you can, if you wish in the information age, keep up with the sport in general terms in a way that was never possible 20 ...