An American Adventure at a Rugby Match
Firstly, you should watch this video to become passionate about New Zealand and the All Blacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwraWS6AHdg
Two weeks ago, I ventured alone to a place where Kiwis congregate in order to see them in their natural element. A Rugby World Cup match.
An no, I saw no unicorns, dragons, frozen players, magic wands, gigantic robots, vultures, jetpacks, guys on each other shoulders, giant ants, or even dinosaurs. In case anyone was wondering.
I arrived 3 and a half hours early, since punctuality is important, and I had to pick up my ticket at the box office. I thought the box office would be full. To their credit, Brits are good at organizing this sort of event and there were security personnel everywhere directing people. Congratulations England, you are good at people-herding. The box office was almost empty, so their strategy of mailing tickets must have been a success.
Anyways, I got myself a programme (why the extra me?) so that I could read about the exotic sport and then went to the Fanzone where I watched an apparently epic Rugby World Cup final between Australia and England with an invisible man with a microphone saying when a call was terrible or something got exciting. Because the British love narrating everything and can’t stand to not talk about their own team. Why they couldn’t play a game featuring the All Blacks or Namibia, when that was clearly the audience in attendance, is beyond me. No one was there to see England or Australia.
Then I went souvenir shopping and onto the Mastercard Fun Bus, where I belted the Star Spangled Banner. The lyrics on the screen were wrong so shame on you Mastercard, very offensive. Mastercard thought the lyrics were “O’er the rockets red glare, the bombs burning in air” which makes NO SENSE. I was the only American to go on the Fun Bus so I was proud to represent us all and correct the friendly woman working the National Anthem Booth. She sang me her national anthem from Bhutan, which was lovely but not in any language I understood.
I went into the stadium at 6 when the doors opened because I assumed something exciting might be happening before the game. I was wrong. The Irish Guard band played but the Northwestern marching band (Go Cats!) is better. They don’t even do a halftime show or anything at rugby.
I waited 2 hours until the game (match?) started. It was an underwhelming start, even with the haka. There were some mini fire sparks as the players ran out but honestly college football has a bigger player run-out ceremony. The national anthem played. Then the teams faced each other and the All Blacks did the haka, which I could hear from my seat but not so loudly. It was still probably the highlight of the match for me.
The game itself is very short (2 40 minute halves and the clock never stops) and probably more exciting when the teams are better matched. The All Blacks had their B team in for most of the game and still were clearly overpowering the Namibians. I’m pretty sure those scrum/huddle things are supposed to move so far. The All Blacks were literally able to push the Namibians down the field. I think some rugby team should get Marshawn Lynch for a game to just carry the ball down the field. So much of it is a running and pushing sport. He’d probably be an instant legend. But seriously, can he do that in the off season?
The Namibians did manage to score though and there were a ton of Namibian fans in the crowd who went insane when they managed to get the ball. I couldn’t figure out the rules of possession, since the All Blacks seemed to have the ball for the vast majority of the game.
The main thing I learned about watching rugby is that people go to socialize, not to pay close attention to the field. I think this is very similar to cricket and soccer. Unless it is an important game, it’s not that exciting. The same guys are on the field the whole time, the strategy isn’t super apparent, the play is continuous, so people drink, chat, and cheer when something happens. I much prefer baseball or even American football or hockey, where things are constantly changing and there is always the potential for an exciting play. There is so much more strategy when the players have specialized roles and each play is carefully decided. This felt more like a Knicks game, where the last 10 minutes are important if it’s close, but otherwise it’s a chance to chat. I chatted with two Kiwis sitting next to me and they had tons of fun telling me all about New Zealand and rugby.
The Namibians played their hearts out and I have a newfound respect for them. Also I was able to tell the Kiwis where Namibia is on the map so yay for Sporcle! I hope it made me seem very knowledgeable and gave us Americans a better reputation. I’m not sure what New Zealanders think of us, but in most places I’ve visited, Americans have an annoying rep. So I try to do my part to make up for that.
Anyways at one point Namibia had to make a Blood Replacement because one guy was clearly played with a broken nose and had too much blood running down his face (how they decide this is beyond me, he’d already been playing a while with it but apparently they were tracking the quantity and determined that it was Too Much Blood). As the Kiwis next to me said, this was just an easy match to the All Blacks, who are the reigning champions, but for the Namibians, who are on a different tier entirely, this was the chance of a lifetime to play against the best team in the world. They knew they had no shot at winning, they were just happy to be there, which was really nice to see.
Towards the end, the All Blacks put in some of their famous guys, just to switch it up and probably to make the Namibians and the crowd happy. The biggest cheer went to Richie McCaw, who I learned is the best, most famous, and most accomplished rugby player ever. And according to the Kiwis, he is known for also being an all around nice guy, representing the All Blacks and the country well. His is in his 30s playing a role that knocks most guys out of rugby in their late 20s. He’s also the captain of the All Blacks and if they win the whole tournament, he will go down in history as the first captain of two Rugby World Cup champion teams. It was a huge deal to the crowd that he played at all and the Namibians will likely be talking about it forever. Again, as I know next to nothing about rugby, most of this information is from the guys who were sitting next to me. I assume some of it is biased towards New Zealand, but I’m reporting it all anyways because I don’t know any better.
The match ended unceremoniously. I didn’t actually realize it had ended for about 30 second. People had been coming and going throughout the game and there wasn’t a big cheer or a mad dash to the exits to mark the end. The teams all shook hands, very sportsmanlike, and everyone clapped and cheered. The most touching part was when the Namibian team took a victory lap, jogging around the whole field waving and cheering. It was really special. They were clearly elated to have played and represented their country against the best team in the world. I’ve never seen a losing team so genuinely happy. And the crowd really supported them too. I get what they say about it being a gentlemanly sport.
Interestingly, the Kiwis said the worst team to play was the English because they are both sore losers and sore winners. This was definitely a good, supportive crowd and both the Namibians and the All Blacks were courteous players. No one tackled too hard, no fights were had, no injuries other than the broken nose. All around, pretty tame for a violent sport. There’s something about American sports that gives them more tension. Like in hockey or football, when you can feel players get pumped up and you can tell they are going to force something great to happen. Or in baseball, when there is a clutch situation with a great hitter against a great pitcher. There was no electricity in the stadium. Possibly because of the match up but it was still a bit underwhelming.
Additional takeaways because I realized I have more:
1. Rugby players are ridiculously attractive. In a looks competition, they could take on any other team from any other sport. Maybe swimming could compete with them but these guys could all be models once they retire from rugby. For no other reason than to see these guys more often, we should publicize rugby in America.
2. There is a position in rugby called Hooker. So some rugby players are hookers.
3. When the teams do their face off thing, they actually lift a teammate so he can catch the ball higher. Is this illegal in basketball? It looked a little cheerleader-y but was effective.
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